We Wear the Mask: Symbols

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

The Mask

As the title suggests, “We Wear the Mask” is organized around the conceit of wearing a mask. Throughout the poem, the mask functions primarily as a tool for deception. The members of the speaker’s community all “wear the mask” to conceal their pain and suffering, thereby fooling the outside world into the belief that they are in fact content. But the mask doesn’t merely symbolize deception. The mask also symbolizes the effort needed for the members of the speaker’s community to preserve their sense of dignity. Indeed, the main purpose of wearing the mask and deceiving the outside world is to avoid making shows of vulnerability that would invite pity from outsiders. The speaker expresses their concern about such a situation when they ask, “Why should the world be over-wise, / In counting all our tears and sighs?” (lines 6–7). Although they don’t say it outright, the speaker implies here that an “over-wise” world might try to intervene if it became aware of “all our tears and sighs.” It is thus to maintain a sense of privacy and dignity that the speaker advocates wearing the mask. Interpreted in this way, the mask symbolizes the community’s effort at self-preservation.

The Clay

In the closing stanza, shortly after their apostrophe to Christ, the speaker makes a passing reference to clay: “We sing, but oh the clay is vile / Beneath our feet, and long the mile” (lines 12–13). Given its proximity to the speaker’s address to Christ, this reference to an extended, clay-covered path may be interpreted as symbolizing a spiritual landscape. Such a landscape is clearly unpleasant and difficult to traverse, though the specific nature of the difficulty isn’t clear. When clay is desiccated and cracked, it can dry out the feet or pose a stumbling hazard. By contrast, when clay is moist or wet, it can suck the feet down and make it especially hard to walk. Either way, the clay obstructs the community’s progression toward salvation from their earthly suffering. The speaker underscores the spiritual nature of the obstruction when they describe the clay as “vile.” This adjective carries a moral undertone, since it connotes something wicked or otherwise morally objectionable. The clay is therefore vile because it arrests their passage out of suffering. In this way, the clay also symbolizes the social, political, and economic forces that conspire cause the community such pain in their earthly existence.

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