This suggests that the poem can be applied to everyone, not only to just the Black Americans that struggle. This tells readers that he can be characterized as being universal. Line 4 begins to develop the truths behind the masks about what they really represent. So at that point we begin to realize that there is pain there. Those hearts are not just torn but also bleeding which emphasizes the struggle and falsehood that the speaker is addressing. If someone is “torn” that usually means that there are two sides pulling at the same time. Also if someone is “bleeding” we can assume that the person is injured figuratively. The poem is written with a repetitive rhyme pattern, until Dunbar interrupts this regular rhythm in the last lines of the second and third stanza. This clearly shows that Dunbar is a mature skillful artisan that uses masking as both theme and