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Claude McKay, “If We Must Die”

“We Wear the Mask” has much in common with McKay’s poem. In both poems, a speaker speaks either to or on behalf of their community, which has suffered greatly from the misfortunes of oppression and marginalization.

W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

The trope of the mask in Dunbar’s poem prefigures the concept of “double consciousness” explored by Du Bois in his magisterial work on turn-of-the-century Black life in America. The whole idea of double consciousness revolves around the challenge of living the duality implied in the term “African American.”

Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

Although in a somewhat different vein, Morrison’s debut novel shares with Dunbar’s poem an interest in the tension between inner experience and outer presentation. The novel follows a young Black girl named Pecola, who develops an inferiority complex due to society’s tendency to see her dark skin as ugly. The complex that develops leads her to fantasize about having blue eyes, which would endow her with the supposed beauty of whiteness.

Previous section Historical & Literary Context

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