Masks

One critical theme of “Masks” relates to the color blue. The word appears twice in the poem. The boy and girl have “blue skin” (Line 1) and “searched for blue” (Line 5) their whole lives. Blue could relate to sadness, since a person who feels blue or has the blues isn’t happy. In Bessie Smith’s blues song “Haunted House Blues” (1924), the singer (or, one could say, the speaker of the song) is not happy about her living situation and how it reminds her of the men in her life. In “Blue” (2003) by the country singer LeAnn Rimes, the singer is lonesome and blue over someone who isn’t lonesome and blue over her. In “Masks,” the girl and boy don’t express their blues but keep them hidden. The poem tackles the theme of sadness and the difficulty of sharing downcast feelings. It’s easier to go through life repressing disquieting feelings than sharing them with the world. A person can go their entire life feeling gloomy and never publicize it. They might meet someone as doleful as they are and not know it because the other person, too, is concealing their heavy heart.