Previous Next

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

The Community versus the World

Twice in the poem, the speaker refers to the larger society beyond their community as “the world.” The first use of this phrase appears in the rhetorical question that opens the second stanza: “Why should the world be over-wise, / In counting all our tears and sighs?” (lines 6–7). Here, the speaker implicitly positions their community in an oppositional relationship with “the world.” Effectively, they’re asking why the outside world should have access to knowledge about what goes on within their community. The speaker revisits this opposition between community and world in the third stanza (lines 12–15):

     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!

Whereas the first couplet expresses the suffering experienced by the speaker and their community, the second couplet reasserts the desire to keep that suffering secret. Instead of revealing their vulnerability, the community should stand apart, “wear the mask,” and allow the wider world to imagine that all’s well. Two things are worth noting about this repeated opposition between community and world. First, if the community sees the wider society as a threat, it’s likely because that society has done the community harm. Second, the community’s desire to deceive the world isn’t about suffering in silence. Rather, it’s about cultivating resilience in the face of oppression.

Previous section Themes Next section Symbols

Take a Study Break