At the turn of the 19th – 20th centuries, the expansion of national consciousness began to occur, and the formation of Native American and African-American literature began. Young African-American writers raised the question, not of the complex life of slaves, as was customary in literature before. It was the question of the consciousness of black people, their souls, the position of the black person in white society, and the prospects for further coexistence of races. One of these writers was Du Bois, who wrote a multi-genre classic study of the black race, its culture and education called “The Souls of Black Folk.”
Each chapter of the book begins with two epigraphs – the text of a poem, usually written by European or American poets, and a spiritual. Epigraphs speak of the unity of the human soul and the values that overcome the barriers of race and nation. The author’s essays are imbued with the idea of affirming racial dignity, humanity, the harmony of black people, their spiritual potential, and a great future.
This work is a combination of fiction, essays, and memoirs about the fact that the African-American community is characterized by a “double consciousness”. This is the symbol by which Dubois means the duality of everything in man: “one ever feels his two-ness – an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder” (Du Bois 38). That is, this duality determines the perception, which does not correspond to the real self-consciousness, but is still it, according to Choedhury, this idea was widely spread not only in the United States, but also in other countries (289). It is also a comparison of beliefs, ideals, and aspirations.
This theory the author applies to American Negroes, namely that they should have a double life: “as a Negro and as an American. This double life, with double thoughts, double social classes, must form double ideals and double words, tempting the mind to revolt and hypocrisy” (Du Bois 155). Gooding-Williams claims that those who presents that dual consciousness is a false consciousness that arises in the context of a racially biased dominant culture (Pittman). Dubois in his work recognized the inevitability of the confrontation of the races.
Another symbol of this work is the veil – an invisible veil that exists in the mind and prevents white people from treating black people as full-fledged people. The same veil exists for black people – it prevents them from seeing themselves as they really are, outside the boundaries of racism. Only for those who grew up in a state of racism, there is no such veil: “and that in the Land of the Color-line I saw, as it fell across my baby, the shadow of the Veil” (Du Bois 150). For children, due to their age, there is also no understanding of the veil yet.
In conclusion, the author uses symbols in order to more expressively show the topic of undervaluation of black people that excites him, causing similar emotions in readers. Moreover, the symbols used give readers the opportunity to visualize the main elements of what the author writes about. Each chapter of this work is filled with metaphors, tragedy and symbols, which helps people to get into the whole complex history of racial discrimination and hostility.
Works Cited
Chowdhury, Rashedur. “From Black Pain to Rhodes Must Fall: A Rejectionist Perspective”. Journal of Business Ethics, 2019, pp. 287-311. Web.
Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. Oxford World’s Classics, USA, 2007.
Pittman, J. “Double Consciousness”. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2016. Web.