Souls Of Black Folk Essay, Research Paper
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The Different Conceptions of the
Veil in The Souls of Black Folk quot;For now we see through a glass,
darkly"
*P*-Isiah 25:7*/P*
W.E.B. Du Bois’s *I*Souls of Black Folk*/I*, a
collection of autobiographical and historical essays contains
many themes. There is the theme of souls and their attainment
of consciousness, the theme of double consciousness and the
duality and bifurcation of black life and culture; but one of
the most striking themes is that of "the veil." The
veil provides a link between the 14 seemingly unconnected
essays that make up *I*The Souls of Black Folk*/I*. Mentioned
at least once in most of the 14 essays it means that,
"the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil,
and gifted with second sight in this American world, -a world
with yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him
see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is
a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense
of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of
others."*A href=#Footnote1B
name=Footnote1A*Footnote1*/A* The veil is a metaphor for the
separation and invisibility of black life and existence in
America and is a reoccurring theme in books about black life
in America.
*br* Du Bois’s veil metaphor, "In those somber forests
of his striving his own soul rose before him, and he saw
himself, -darkly as though through a veil"*A
href=#Footnote2B name=Footnote2A*Footnote2*/A*, is a allusion
to Saint Paul’s line in Isiah 25:7, "For now we see
through a glass, darkly."*A href=#Footnote3B
name=Footnote3A*Footnote3*/A* Saint Paul’s use of the veil in
Isiah and later in Second Corinthians is similar to Du Bois’s
use of the metaphor of the veil. Both writers claim that as
long as one is wrapped in the veil their attempts to gain
self-consciousness will fail because they will always see the
image of themselves reflect back to them by others. Du Bois
applies this by claiming that as long as on is behind the
veil the, "world which yields him no self-consciousness
but who only lets him see himself through the revelation of
the other world."*A href=#Footnote4B
name=Footnote4A*Footnote4*/A* Saint Paul in Second
Corinthians says the way to self consciousness and an
understanding lies in, "the veil being taken away, Now
the lord is the spirit and where the spirit of the lord is
there is liberty." Du Bois does not claim that
transcending the veil will lead to a better understanding of
the lord but like Saint Paul he finds that only through
transcending "the veil" can people achieve liberty
and gain self-consciousness.
*br* The veil metaphor in *I*Souls of Black Folk*/I* is
symbolic of the invisibility of blacks in America. Du Bois
says that Blacks in America are a forgotten people,
"after the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the
Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son,
born with a veil."*A href=#Footnote5B
name=Footnote5A*Footnote5*/A* The invisibility of Black
existence in America is one of the reasons why Du Bois writes
*I*Souls of Black Folk*/I* in order to elucidate the
"invisible" history and strivings of Black
Americans, "I have sought here to sketch, in vague,
uncertain outline, the spiritual world in which ten thousand
Americans live and strive."*A href=#Footnote6B
name=Footnote6A*Footnote6*/A* Du Bois in each of the
following chapters tries to manifest the strivings of Black
existence from that of the reconstruction period to the black
spirituals and the stories of rural black children that he
tried to educate. Du Bois in *I*Souls of Black Folk*/I* is
grappling with trying to establish some sense of history and
memory for Black Americans, Du Bois struggles in the pages of
the book to prevent Black Americans from becoming a Seventh
Son invisible to the rest of the world, hidden behind a veil
of prejudice, "Hear my Cry, O God the reader vouch safe
that this my book fall not still born into the
world-wilderness. Let there spring, Gentle one, from its
leaves vigor of thought and thoughtful deed to reap the
harvest wonderful."*A href=#Footnote7B
name=Footnote7A*Footnote7*/A*
*br* The invisibility of Black existence is a recurring theme
in other books about Black history. In Raboteau’s book slave
religion is called, "the invisible institution of the
antebellum South."*A href=#Footnote8B
name=Footnote8A*Footnote8*/A* Raboteau tries to uncover and
bring to light the religious practices of Black slaves, he
tried to bring their history out of the veil. Rabatoeu writes
how religion for slaves was a way in which, "slaves
maintained their identity as persons despite a system bent on
reducing them to a subhuman level… In the midst of slavery
religion was for the enslaved a space of meaning, freedom,
and transcendence."*A href=#Footnote9B
name=Footnote9A*Footnote9*/A* Because slave religion was an
invisible institution hidden by a veil from white slave
masters it provided a way in which slaves could resist social
death. The history of Black women is also the history of a
people made invisible; hidden behind the veil. Bell Hooks in
her study of Black women and feminism tries to bring to light
the forgotten past of black women who have also been hidden
behind a veil, " Traditionally, scholars have emphasized
the impact of slavery on the black male consciousness,
arguing that black men more so than black women were the real
victims of slavery."*A href=#Footnote10B
name=Footnote10A*Footnote10*/A* To Bell Hooks the veil which
makes black women invisible to white society is made from an
inseparable cloth woven from the threads of racism and
sexism. The Black reconstruction period is another area in
which scholars have grappled with the consequences of the
veil which has hidden the history of black striving and
struggle from view. Eric Foner’s book on the reconstruction
was the first major study of the period since Du Bois’s book
on the period fifty years earlier.*A href=#Footnote11B
name=Footnote11A*Footnote11*/A* The reconstruction which
Foner terms America’s unfinished revolution could also be
called American invisible revolution due to the lack of
scholarship on the area.
*br* The most striking examples of the theme of the veil and
invisibility is in literature about Blacks struggling with
their identity and with oppression. In *I*Beloved*/I* Setha’s
rational for killing her child can not be understood by the
white police system which sentence her to prison. In Ralph
Ellison’s *I*Invisible Man*/I* the main character says,
"I am an invisible man, No I am not a spook like those
that haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood
movie ectoplasm’s. I am a man of flesh and bone, fiber and
liquids- and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am
invisible understand because people refuse to see me."*A
href=#Footnote12B name=Footnote12A*Footnote12*/A* Ralph
Ellison’s invisible man like the history of black women,
slavery, reconstruction, and many other elements of black
life are hidden behind "the veil" making them
invisible to much of society.
*br* The veil is also a metaphor for the separation both
physically and psychologically of blacks and whites America.
Physically the veil separates blacks and whites through
Slavery, Jim Crow laws, economic inequality, and the
voluntary segregation that followed the end of the civil war.
The veil acts as a physical barrier that permanently brands
black Americans as an "other"; the veil is the
metaphorical manifestation of the train tracks that divide
the black and white parts of town. Du Bois in Chapter two
lays out the creation of the veil from the end of the civil
war to the failure of reconstruction. The following chapters
then tell of those who have acted to strengthen the veil such
as Booker T. Washington or who suffered behind the veil such
as the school children Du Bois taught.
*br* The veil also acts as a psychological barrier separating
blacks from whites. The theme of the psychological separation
of blacks and whites is a central metaphor of the book
starting with the first lines where Du Bois recalls his
encounters with whites who view him not as a person but as a
problem, "They half approach me in a half-hesitant sort
of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then instead
of saying directly how does it feel to be a problem? They
say, I know an Excellent colored man in my town."*A
href=#Footnote13B name=Footnote13A*Footnote13*/A* The veil in
this case hides the humanity of blacks which has important
implications to the types of relations that developed between
blacks and whites. With their humanity hidden behind
"the veil" black and white relations at the time of
the writing of the *I*Souls of Black Folk*/I* were marked by
violence: draft riots in New York during the Civil War, riots
following the reconstruction period, the lynching of Blacks,
and the formation of the Klu Klux Klan.*A href=#Footnote14B
name=Footnote14A*Footnote14*/A*
*br* The theme of separation caused by the veil is repeated in
many other black texts. In Raboteau’s book slave religious
practices were separate from white religious practices.*A
href=#Footnote15B name=Footnote15A*Footnote15*/A* Although
many time slaves and their masters worshipped together
religion during the slavery period provided to very separate
things for master and slaves. For the master religion was a
way to justify slavery*A href=#Footnote16B
name=Footnote16A*Footnote16*/A* and for slaves religion
became a form of resistance and hope; a way to resist social
death. In Eric Foner’s book on reconstruction a veil
separated black and white interpretations of
reconstruction.*A href=#Footnote17B
name=Footnote17A*Footnote17*/A* For blacks reconstruction was
a time of hope and freedom; for whites reconstruction was a
time in which the north repressed a defeated region, with
ignorant former slaves, who unable to act constructively for
themselves were pawns of the northern intruders. The veil, a
metaphor for separation both physically and psychologically
hides the humanity of blacks, and created deep divisions
between the races.
*br* Du Bois in *I*Souls of Black Folk*/I* unlike other
blacks is able to move around the veil, operate behind it,
lift it, and even transcend it. In the forethought Du Bois
tells the reader that in the following chapters he has,
"Stepped with in the veil, raising it that you may view
faintly its deeper recesses, -the meaning of its religion,
the passion of its human sorrow, and the struggle of its
greater souls."*A href=#Footnote18B
name=Footnote18A*Footnote18*/A* Du Bois in the first Chapter
steps outside the veil to reveal the origin and his awareness
of the veil. And it is Du Bois’s awareness of the veil that
allows him to step outside of it and reveal the history of
the Negro, "his two-ness, -an American, a Negro, two
souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings, two warring
ideals in one dark body."*A href=#Footnote19B
name=Footnote19A*Footnote19*/A* Now that he has lifted the
veil in the following chapters Du Bois shows his white
audience the history of the Black man following
reconstruction, the origins of the black church. Du Bois then
talks about the conditions of individuals living behind the
veil from his first born son who, "With in the veil was
he born, said I; and there with in shall he live, -a Negro
and a Negro’s son…. I saw the shadow of the veil as it
passed over my baby, I saw the cold city towering above the
blood read land."*A href=#Footnote20B
name=Footnote20A*Footnote20*/A* In this passage Du Bois is
both with in and above the veil. He is a Negro living like
his baby within the veil but he is also above the veil, able
to see it pass over his child. After Du Bois’s child dies he
prays that it will, "sleep till I sleep, and waken to a
baby voice and the ceaseless patter of little feet-above the
veil."*A href=#Footnote21B
name=Footnote21A*Footnote21*/A* Here Du Bois is living above
the veil but in the following Chapter he once again travels
behind the veil to tell the story of Alexander Crummell a
black man who for, "fourscore years had he wondered in
this same world of mine, within the Veil."*A
href=#Footnote22B name=Footnote22A*Footnote22*/A* Du Bois
then in the last Chapter "Sorrow Songs" travels
back into the veil from which he came, to return to the
spiritual. Du Bois’s ability to move around the veil could
create some confusion as to whether the writer is black. For
this reason Du Bois says in his introduction says that,
"I who speak here am bone of the bone and flesh of the
flesh of them that live within the veil."*A
href=#Footnote23B name=Footnote23A*Footnote23*/A* Du Bois’s
ability to move in and out of the veil gives him the ability
to expose to whites that which is obscured from their view.
It also lends Du Bois authority when speaking about his
subject matter for he alone in the book is able to operate on
both sides of the veil.
*br* In the Chapter on "Sorrow Songs" Du Bois
implores the reader to rise above the veil, "In his good
time America shall rend the veil and the prisoner shall go
free."*A href=#Footnote24B
name=Footnote24A*Footnote24*/A* Du Bois likens the veil to a
prison that traps Blacks from achieving progress and freedom.
According to Du Bois the veil causes Blacks to accept the
false images that whites see of Blacks. Du Bois although not
explicitly in *I*Souls of Black Folk*/I* critique’s Booker T.
Washington for accepting the veil and accepting white’s ideas
of Blacks. Booker T. Washington an accomidationist accepts
the white idea that blacks are problem people; not a people
with a problem caused by white racism.*A href=#Footnote25B
name=Footnote25A*Footnote25*/A* Booker T. Washington seeks to
work behind the veil by pursuing polices of accommodation. Du
Bois in contrast wants blacks to transcend the veil by
politically agitating and educating themselves.
*br* Du Bois’s conception of the veil contradicts some of the
other theme’s in *I*Souls of Black Folk*/I*. First, how can
the problem of the twentieth century be that of the
color-line when blacks are invisible behind a veil of
prejudice? Second, how can Du Bois speak from behind the veil
as he does in parts of certain chapters and yet present a
resemble critique of society? Third, how can the veil both
make blacks invisible and separate them at the same time and
make the separations so apparent to society. Fourth, how can
Du Bois say blacks are gifted with "second sight"
when Du Bois says blacks are looking at their past and
present through a veil? And Fifth, Du Bois’s prescription for
lifting the veil, education and political activism, are only
small steps to lifting the stifling iron veil that keeps
blacks invisible and separated from white America. Du Bois’s
metaphor has limitations and internal contradictions; but
these internal contradictions are minor compared to the power
that "the veil" has as a symbol of black existence
in America.
*br* The veil in *I*Souls of Black Folk*/I* is a metaphor
that connotes the invisibility of black America, the
separation between whites and blacks, and the obstacles that
blacks face in gaining self-consciousness in a racist
society. The veil is also a metaphor that reoccurs in other
novels about black strivings. The veil is not a two
dimensional cloth to Du Bois but instead it is a three
dimensional prison that prevent blacks from seeing themselves
as they are but instead makes them see the negative
stereotypes that whites have of them.*A href=#Footnote26B
name=Footnote26A*Footnote26*/A* The veil is also to Du Bois
both a blind fold and a noose on the existence of "ten
thousand thousand" Americans who live and strive