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Double Consciousness In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

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Du Bois’ concept of double consciousness is a mode of having to simultaneously juggle two contradictory identities, such as of being both black and white, or being both black and America, in a country where the two are systemically incompatible. This effectively results in a severing and doubling of consciousness. In this way, African Americans have an extra burden having to see themselves through the eyes of the white oppressor. In the Ethics of Jim Crow Wright explains how even the most seemingly trivial, everyday exchanges are highly nuanced for African Americans. Wright recalls an instance where he was in an elevator, but his hands were full and he couldn’t take off his hat (as was custom in an elevator). While this act might be seen as …show more content…

The narrator discusses feeling conflicted as to how he ought to behave after hearing his grandfather’s final words, preoccupied with how the whites “desired [him] to act” (1556) and how he should act. In this way, the narrator must not only worry about how he behaves, but how white people perceive it. In this chapter, we also see double consciousness specifically as the attempted reconciliation of being both black and American. This is perhaps most evident in the passage about the exotic dancer with “an American flag tattooed upon her belly” (1557) that is put in front of Ellison’s narrator and nine other black men. A crowd of white men surrounds them, “some [threatening] [them] if [they] looked, and others if [they] did not” (1557). Moreover, the narrator recounts holding mixed feelings about her; “I wanted at one and the same time to run from the room, to sink through the floor, or go to her and cover her from my eyes and the eyes of the others with my body…to love her and murder her” (1557). There is a sense the dancer is symbolic of America, and these contradictory feelings demonstrate the difficulty of navigating the conflicting identities of being both black and American. America “seduces” them into wanting to be a part of it with its promise of freedom and opportunity, but African Americans are continually oppressed by its systemic racism and not afforded that

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