Bookish Gifts for Bookish People

With Christmas on its way it's high time I start my gift Wish-list. 

(Although who are we kidding, you know I just go to my book-list and write down any titles I borrowed from the library but Simply Must Have. Bear with me; this should be fun anyway.)

There is a veritable plethora* of merchandise out there for the Confirmed Reader, and lucky for the people who make these kind of novelties I happen to be such a shopper.  Almost anything tome-related goes on my Wish-list spectrum, ranging from "Aw that'd be nice to have one day" to "I NEED THIS RIGHT NOW *insert gnawing sounds as I bite the bit*!"

Thoughts on Paul Lawrence Dunbar's "We Wear the Mask"

WE wear the mask that grins and lies,
    It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
    This debt we pay to human guile;
    With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
    And mouth with myriad subtleties.
    Why should the world be over-wise,
    In counting all our tears and sighs?
    Nay, let them only see us, while
            We wear the mask. 

    We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
    To thee from tortured souls arise.
    We sing, but oh the clay is vile
    Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
    But let the world dream otherwise,
            We wear the mask!

Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s poem “We Wear the Mask” communicates a human condition that many people find relatable: a sense of “putting up a front” and hiding one’s true personality from others.  This poem is relevant in African American literature, connecting to W.E.B. Du Bois’ concept of “double-consciousness” and or “two-ness” in that there is a difference between one’s real identity and the one that outsiders perceive.  Like the plight of the narrator of James Walden Johnson’s “Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man,” African Americans of Dunbar’s time had to assume a perspective of white society, while downplaying or hiding their heritage, in order to prosper.

As in many great poems, “We Wear the Mask” works on many different levels of interpretation: not only does “wearing the mask” deal with issues of race, but it is also concerned with anyone who has hidden behind a façade for fear that they wouldn’t be accepted by society otherwise.  In fact, because the idea of hiding one's true self is so universal, this poem makes it possible for readers who otherwise might not think about issues of race to understand the problems of racism and the quest to embrace one's racial identity.

Shakespeare's "Othello": From Victim to Villain

William Shakespeare’s Othello is a play concerned with hatred, betrayal and jealousy. Its main character is presumed hero is a Moorish soldier, Othello, who over the course of the plot demonstrates each of these emotional states. This is ironic since it is the villain who should have possesses these negative traits, and yet in Othello both the hero and the villain are consumed with jealousy and hatred. Othello is radically altered from a protagonist to an antagonist in his own story, and his rapid descent into barbaric behavior makes him the culprit of his own downfall.