The Works of Paul Dunbar

Paul Lawrence Dunbar was the son of two freed slaves and an African American. A regionalism writer famous for his use of African American dialect in his poems, often with the central action occurring in the deep south and focusing on African Americans, who never had an opportunity for education and thus their pattern of speech and dialect sounded unrefined to the untrained ear, but their language added some color to otherwise bland sentences or descriptions, which was one of the reasons Dunbar used the dialect in his writings. His focus on setting and dialect, mark him as akin to the African American Mark Twain and he was famous for his use of dialect in his poems and stories, which like Twain sets Dunbar in the regionalist category for his use crucial use of dialect and setting that serve to introduce and memorialize characters through distinctive speech patterns that allow readers a more vivid portrait of the action occuring and visualizes the characters.

Regionalism is defined by Giles as, "It is generally seen as having two distinct strands: social realism (the recording of observable experiences of individual characters within distinct social classes) and psychological realism (the exploration of the hidden and complex workings of the conscious minds of individual characters)." Through his use of dialect and memorable identifiable characters Dunbar cemented his place as a regionalism writer although he neglects the pursuit of the American Dream and the atypical everyman characters instead opting for using the average African American standpoint on issues that reveal the mentality of the society of African Americans. Two of his poems "Douglass," and "We Wear the Mask" were not written in dialect because although Dunbar appreciated dialect, he thought that some poems simply sounded better in plain English and lost too much of their subject matter in translation from English to African American dialect, while with others it added in certain twists and descriptions that would otherwise be lacking in the English version.

With lines from "Douglass" like, "For they strong arm to guide the shivering bark, The blast defying power of thy form, To give us comfort through the lonely dark (570.)" and lines from "We Wear the Mask" like "Why should the world be over wise, In counting our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us, while We wear the mask" Dunbar clearly marks the African American point of view. In his first poem he sends a message to the ghost of Frederick Douglass calling upon his help in the African American communities need of guidance and assistance revealing the mentality of the African Americans and their respect for Douglass. In the second poem to veil their emotions from their white overlords the blacks "wear a mask" that cover up their true emotions and fool the whites into thinking that everything is fine. Through his use of setting and revealing the society of African Americans, Dunbar reveals his regionalist roots and tendancies and he and his works plant themselves firmly as regionalist works to be remembered for the ages, due to their ability to reveal so much about a society through simple poetry and language.

Giles, James R. "realism." In Anderson, George P., Judith S. Baughman, Matthew J. Bruccoli, and Carl Rollyson, eds. Encyclopedia of American Literature, Revised Edition: Into the Modern: 1896–1945, Volume 3. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= EAmL1326&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 16, 2011).

Dunbar, Paul Laurence. "Douglass." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus; McGraw-Hill, 2010. 570. Print.

Dunbar, Paul Laurence. "We Wear the Mask." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus; McGraw-Hill, 2010. 571. Print.