The Mask

Today in class we talked about a poem called "We wear the Mask." It talked about how people wear a mask sometimes and society doesn't see who they are or what they really feel on the inside. During the discussion a lot of comparison's were made to the "mask" that Bledsoe wears in Invisible Man when he is talking to Mr. Norton or the trustees and how that differs from his actual personality that comes out when he talks to the narrator.

As we were discussing I thought about the narrator and what "mask" he wears and I found that a when he enters the Brotherhood, it seems to me like he is asked to wear a "mask." He is given a new identity and is completely retaught in a new way of thinking by an older member of the Brotherhood. When he makes his speeches he isn't talking as himself but as that the identity that they have created for him, he speaks wearing the "mask" of the Brotherhood. In the beginning it seems that he is simply spouting their ideologies and doesn't completely believe in or even fully understand what he is saying.

As he begins to spend more time in his role with the Brotherhood, I think that he begins to become the "mask" that he wears. He starts to agree more with the ideas that he was taught by the Brothers and the identity that they gave him is more and more becoming his identity. I think that at the same time that he is becoming more independent and confident, he is also losing a part of he was before he came to the North.