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The Veil In Du Bois's The Souls Of Black Folk

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In the book “The Souls of Black Folk”, Du Bois uses essays to vividly explain the upbringing of the Negroes livelihood before and after the Emancipation Proclamation, the slow rise of personal leadership, and lastly the two worlds within and without the veil and how it has become a problem of training men for life. In the forethought, Du Bois introduces the image of the veil and shows the importance of that single statement, which holds a strong meaning throughout the entire book. In this essay, I will identify the author’s true purpose in the meaning and reference of “the veil” as well as “double consciousness”. During the years following emancipation, black people could choose to live “behind the veil,” viewing their newfound freedom as a blessing, or they could live …show more content…

The veil can be compared to “rose-colored glasses” that provide optimism for black people who choose not to see their oppression. Yet at the same time, it harms them by encouraging black people to ignore the circumstances in which they live. Double consciousness is the belief that the African American in the United States lives with two conflicting identities that cannot be entirely merged together. The first conflicting identity is the black identity and it is the most important to the black experience. This is something that every black person has and no other race can identify with. The second conflicting identity is the American identity, which is only alive because of the circumstances of slavery. This is how black people are able to understand what life is like for people that are within and outside of their group. However, white people could never understand the black experience. Du Bois mentioned, “The exchange was merry, till one girl, a tall newcomer, refused my card,---refused it peremptorily, with a glance…”. At that very moment, he realized that he was not accepted naturally by the outside race. He was fine with having a different perspective and he did not

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Du Bois uses many different ways to target the reader. His main purpose in “Of Our Spiritual Strivings”, is to educate mistreated Africans American about demanding equality and rights that were promised to them around the time of the Emancipation Proclamation. Du Bois uses different types of literary devices (mostly personifications) and firsthand accounts stories about injustice to make his point to the reader. For example, Du Bois states, “Will America be poorer if she replaces her brutal dyspeptic blundering with light-hearted but determined Negro humility?” (Du Bois 297).

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In the analysis of the abundance of wonderful leaders who made a difference in the African American community since emancipation, W.E.B Du Bois made a special impact to advance the world. From founding the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, to his influential book The Souls of Black Folk, he always found an accurate yet abstract way of verbalizing the strives of African Americans as well as making platforms for them to be known. Although he had less power than most of the bigger named African American leaders of his time, W.E.B Dubois’ overweighing strengths verses weaknesses, accurate and creative analogies, leadership style, and the successful foundations he stood for demonstrates his ability to be both realistic and accurate in his assessment since emancipation. Though Du Bois did have a beneficial impact

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Dr. W.E.B Du Bois uses this essay to sway the audience of the insufficiency of the statements that Mr. Booker T. Washington has made about African Americans being submissive of rights and the creation of wealth. Mr. Washington believes that the black race should give up and give into what the society norms were at that time sequentially just to have a certain right. Dr. Du Bois refused to believe that the black race should give up one right to get another right. Especially, when the white South had all rights without expecting to give up anything to have those rights.

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The poem I chose to analyze is We Wear the Mask, written by Paul Lawrence Dunbar in 1896. Its theme is about hiding our true feelings and emotions, and lying about who we are. When looking at Dunbar’s life history, and the political context at the time, we understand that he efficiently uses this theme in order to talk about how black people have to hide how they feel about their social status and the treatment they receive from white people. He conveys the theme to the audience thanks to a clever word choice. Indeed, he talks about “grin” and “smile”, using facial expressions as a description of the mask (Dunbar, lines 1 & 4).

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Double consciousness is a term coined by W.E.B. DuBois in his The Souls of Black Folk. He describes it as, “a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity”(2). The theory of double consciousness is the idea that the African American must navigate the voyages of life from within a form of “two-ness” (2), because he is both man, and black.

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