The speaker’s concerns can also be read as a criticism of art which doesn’t represent the true (the actual) model, but which represents the artist’s ideal of her. The woman becomes a mere object who serves the artist in his work rather than a subjective human being. This can be seen as a general criticism of the status quo between the sexes where women are seen as inferior and men as dominant.
Dante Rossetti’s Portrait of Elizabeth Siddal
Analysis
| Stanza | Comment | |
| 1–4 | The artist paints portraits of women in different positions but the face is the same (“One face looks out from all his canvases”).“We” is the speaker and companion who claim to see the real woman, the model, behind the paintings (“canvases”, “screens”).The screens are like a mirror that reflects her beauty (“all her loveliness”). | The speaker says that the painter paints the same face in all his portraits, possibly because he uses the same woman as model. The speaker looks for the reality of the woman, not as she has been painted, but as she really is (“hidden just behind those screens”). The screen is a mirror but the implied question is whether the real woman is as beautiful as the painting has made her. |
| 5–8 | The speaker describes the different portraits of the woman as painted by the artist (“queen”, “nameless girl”, “saint”, “angel”) and her clothing (“opal”, “ruby”, “summer-greens”). In the speaker’s opinion, the meaning of the portrait doesn’t change, they all mean the same thing. | What do these different portrayals of a woman, the same woman, signify? What is their meaning? The speaker is suggesting that they all show the idealised version of a woman, as the artist would like her to be, that he is perhaps unaware of the real person and her own life and desires.The comments can also be seen as criticism of the subject matter of the artist as being very limited. |
| 9–14 | Line 9 here is a startling expression if taken literally, but means that the face inspires, obsesses the artist, shows an unnatural state of affairs. What he has painted is a perfect woman with “true kind eyes …/Fair … and joyful” (lines 10–11)rather than pale, and sad. The speaker suggests that the woman is no longer like that (“Not as she is”) but as she used to be before, the woman of his dreams. | He portrays her as an ideal woman (“as she fills his dream[s]”, his desire for her). In the painting her eyes are kind and true, and she is beautiful and happy. This is contrasted by the speaker who tells what she possibly does look like: pale (“wan”) and sad and not shining like the moon and light, but “dim[med]” by “sorrow”.Note the repetition of “Not as she is” in lines 13 and 14, which emphasises that the model has not been painted truly, that the artist has not been true to the reality of the model. He has used the woman to paint his ideal dream of her. |
Contextual questions
1.Write out the rhyme scheme of the sonnet. (2)
2.How does the repetition of “One” at the beginning of the first two lines add to the meaning? (3)
3.What double meaning can one find in the word “screens” (line 3) and how does it add to the meaning? (3)
4.In what way can this be read as a “feminist” poem? (The feminist movement fought for equal rights for women in every way.) (3)
5.In what way can the critique of the artist in the poem be seen as ironic, given the content of the poem? (4)
6.What effect does the choice to use “Not … not … / Not … but … / Not … but …” in the last three lines have on the meaning the speaker/poet wants to convey? (5)
(20)
| Enrichment activityLook at paintings by the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti and decide whether you agree with what the speaker in the poem is saying about them. |
We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar
(See p. 22 in Poems From All Over)
| Title: | The “we” associates the speaker with his people, who all hide their true feelings behind a mask of contentment. The title is the first line and refrain of the poem. |
| Theme: | Suffering, endurance under oppression. |
| Mood: | Sad |
Discussion
We know that the poet is the child of slaves and African American, and we know how black people were treated in the United States of America at the time. This background knowledge lets us interpret the poem in a certain way.
The speaker speaks for his people, the oppressed descendants of the slave population. The face these people present to the world hides their suffering and unhappiness. They fear that to show their true feelings would cause more punishment to be inflicted on them. They pretend (“[T]his debt we pay to human guile”) to be happy. He continues by describing what it is they are hiding behind their masks: their suffering. They cry out to Christ (Christian beliefs) in their pain, but do not show it to the world.
The idea in the poem can also be generalised to all who suffer and hide their suffering. This could apply to all oppressed people and even to individuals.
The poem has three stanzas of uneven length (stanza 1 – five lines, stanza 2 – four lines and stanza 3 – six lines), with the rhythm and repetition typical of a song. There is rhyme but it is not regular. This supports the meaning of the poem: it seems a song, but is not, just as the people seem happy, but are not.
Analysis
| Stanza | Comment | |
| 1 | The masks (the false faces) that the “we” of the poem show, hide their faces (cheeks and eyes). They present a face of happiness. Their true feelings are expressed in “With torn and bleeding hearts”, indicating their deep suffering. The word “mouth” means their words when they speak. These are also lies, spoken in many ways (with “myriad subtleties”). The speaker is saying they have to hide the truth of their feelings and act as if they are happy. He doesn’t give a reason for this but it is understood that it is necessary for them to continue living without further harm or punishment. | The speaker speaks in a straightforward manner, making his meaning clear. The grin is the mask, the lie. The truth is the “torn and bleeding hearts”. This image gives an intense picture if we imagine it literally. |
| 2 | The second stanza contains a question, a rhetorical question that needs no answer. He asks why they would reveal the true state of how they feelings.The “world” is linked with “them”, pointing to an “us” and “them” opposition, the oppressed and the oppressors. He affirms that the “we” will only show “them” the mask. | Notice the rhyming first two lines: “wise / sighs” which is the same rhyme as in the first and third stanzas (“lies / eyes” and “cries / arise”). These sounds connect the ideas in the three stanzas, which are also basically the same, and at the same time add to the lyrical quality of a song. And then the refrain confirms this quality.Note “over-wise” not just “wise”. The word implies to know more than you need to. |
| 3 | “We smile” is repeated as in line 4 and opposed with “cries” at the end of the line. The smile has come to stand for the mask, the falseness of what they show. The cry to Christ is heart-rending, the idea of their suffering made worse with the words “tortured souls”. They walk a long distance, figuratively (not literally) but the “clay” under their feet is “vile”. | This stanza adds their cries to heaven as further evidence of their torture and suffering.The slaves
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