English - College Literature - Essay Example

English 102 12 July 2007 The Function of Poetry This essay will look at “Incident” by Countee Cullen (1925) and “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1896) to examine how the poets’ shared, expressed, and interpreted life experiences that mattered to them and that we can all relate to. The function of poetry is to help us see, feel, share and understand important and meaningful truths that will inform and enrich our own lives and widen our experience.A powerful poem contains a message that is as relevant today as when the poet wrote it.

“We Wear the Mask” is an example of this. The tone of despair and anger underlines a theme of hidden suffering, where people cover up their feelings, only expressing them in prayer, “We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries / To thee from tortured souls arise.” (1. 0-11). The speaker is not definable as male or female, young or old, but has a voice that could apply to many, as the poet shares the suffering experiences across a whole range of humanity, evidenced by the use of “we”.

The metaphor of “the mask that grins and lies,” (l. 1) and the reason for using this protection, “Nay, let them only see us while / We wear the mask” (l. 8-9), signified how people may hurt inside for many reasons but want to hide the pain. It seemed to be a matter of pride, as in “why should the world be over-wise, / In counting all our tears and sighs?” (l. 6-7), to keep the suffering hidden. Dunbar was a child of slaves and he understood the suffering of slavery. But the concept of covering up our pain can apply to anyone; the mask is a symbol of the human need to protect itself.

Often, at school or hanging out with friends, somebody can say something hurtful, maybe as a joke, so we smile or laugh in response, pretending not to be vulnerable and covering up our hurt. The poet expressed exactly how much we hurt and how the pretence can damage us. He makes us feel other’s pain and relate it to our own, and maybe realize that if we take off the mask, we could suffer less and become stronger. “Incident”, with the simple, repetitive rhythms of a child’s sung rhyme and point of view, gives a difference perspective on how people hurt each other.

The boy speaker, most likely the poet, recalled a childhood memory with an ironic tone that suggests he had risen above that experience. Though the poem reads like a child telling a story, with true rhyme such as “glee” (l. 2) and “me” (l. 4), “bigger” (1. 6) and “nigger” (l. 8), its message is stark. The theme of racism and its enduring impact, “Of all the things that happened there / That’s all that I remember” (l. 11-12), extends beyond the time and place and can be considered to hold true today.

A little boy “Heart-filled, head-filled with glee” (l. 2) can still be brought down by the insult and prejudice contained in the word “nigger” (l. 8). That is the message in this poem, the lesson that relates to every time we feel superior to another person because they are different. When we express the belief that we are better than someone else, the hurt caused never goes out of the memory. The poem makes us aware that attitudes and actions like this are not acceptable, because inside everybody, is the child who can be damaged.

As seen from these two great poems, the function of poetry is to help us understand important truths that can enhance our experience and enrich our lives by learning from them. The poet puts into words the emotions we might feel but cannot say, and gives us the opportunity to think about ourselves and our interactions with others. Poetry is a valuable tool for exploring meaning in life and in helping us to recognize the human condition.