Masks

In the poem, skin symbolizes a person’s vulnerability, and it reveals something about their identity. The boy and girl each have blue skin, so they’re united. As skin color isn’t a choice, there’s nothing the characters can do about their skin color except try and conceal it. For reasons the poem never clarifies, the girl and boy keep their true skin color hidden. Their skin color represents loss and alienation. Since they masked the real color of their skin, they’re unable to find one another.

“Masks” is far from the only literary work where skin is critically symbolic. In Nella Larsen’s novel Passing (1929), Irene Redfield’s Black friend Clare Kendry conceals her true skin color and goes through much of her life as a white person. Kendry’s masking has fatal consequences for her. In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970), a young Black girl named Pecola wishes she had white skin and blue eyes. In such a literary context, the blue skin in “Masks” symbolizes race or a marginalized and vulnerable identity. The boy and girl might have hidden their blue skin to avoid persecution or oppression.