Sometimes individuals use their appearance to establish their identity developed by the author. In the poem "We Wear the Masks" by Paul Laurance Dunbar and the Vignette The Family of Little Feet from " The House of Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros, the speaker and main characters have used "masks" to hide their true identities. Dunbar told that we could not let the world to see our true feelings. Cisneros used "shoes" to identify Lucy and Rachel, the main characters of the story.

In the poem "We Wear the Masks", Paul Dunbar had meant that even though we have broken hearts, but we still have to wear masks to hide and we can do nothing about it. "This debt we pay to human guile, with torn and bleeding heart we smile", we should let others to see our true feelings, but we can not show others our weaknesses. We have to wear masks to hide, but where are our true feelings? Dunbar used many techniques to help him establish this poem. Such as rhyming couplets, he uses it to enhance how the poem sounds. Dunbar also used irony. Dunbar agrees and disagrees about wearing masks to hide people’s own identities. He does not want the world to know what he is thinking about, and he does want to show his won feelings.

In the Vignette The Family of Little Feet from "The House of Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros, Cisneros really had the same expression as Dunbar, using "masks". Rachel and Lucy used shoes as "masks" to establish their identity. Rachel thought that she looked totally different and more beautiful. But, the "masks" that the lemon shoes gave her had harmed her. The pair of shoes that Rachel wore was masks that mean she is grown up, and beautiful. Rachel does not want to be beautiful anymore, her and Lucy; her sister had enough of mental pressure from the males that live around Mango Street. "They are tired of being beautiful," the don't want to wear "masks" anymore, they want to be their true selves.

Sometimes, individuals use their appearance to establish their identities developed by the writers. "We Wear the Masks" by Paul Dunbar, The Family of Little Feet by Sandra Cisneros, in both works of literature, the author had used "masks" to identify their speaker’s and the main character’s identities. Dunbar himself in "We Wear the Masks", Rachel, Lucy and Esperanza in "The Family of Little Feet" by Sandra Cisneros all wore "masks". These two works of literature are examples that support this idea.