Students
Teachers & SchoolsStudents
Teachers & SchoolsSmile
This is not the sort of smile you have after indulging in your favorite chocolate bar. It's more like the kind of smile a person has when (s)he is upset, but doesn't want to upset you, too. So that person may just grin and bear it and hide his true feelings. But that kind of smile isn't helping matters in Dunbar's poem. In fact, it's making things worse because that smile is hiding the full extent of the emotional conflict he's referring to.