Life Behind the Veil in Du Bois The Souls of Black Folk Essay

Life Behind the greater omentum in Du Bois The Souls of Black FolkDu Bois metaphor of copy consciousness and his possible action of the Veil are the most inclusive explanation of the ever-present plight of modern African Americans ever produced. In his nineteenth century work, The Souls of Black Folks, Du Bois describes double consciousness as a peculiar sensation. . . the sense of eer looking at ones self through the eyes of others, of measuring ones soul by the immortalise of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity (Du Bois, 3). According to Du Bois assertions, the Black American exists in a consistent twoness, - an American, a pitch blackness(3). Further, he theorizes, the African American lives shut behind a veil, viewing from within and without it. He is privy to white Americas perspective of him, yet he cannot give notice (of) his true self. He is, in fact, protected and harmed by The Veil.Nearly a century later, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., himself a Harvard schola r, addresses the anomaly of the Afro-American as he has existed for the late(prenominal) two centuries that the Black Americans greatest obstacle is the lack of self determination. The inability to define oneself will undoubtedly lead to an unhealthy dependence upon the definition of a biased party that will apply an erroneous definition. Gates states that the Afro Americans attempt to gain self-consciousness in a racist society will always be impaired by the fact that any reflected image that he or she seeks in the gaze of white Americans is refracted through the dark veil-mirror of existence...(Du Bois, xx).Since 1945, in what is define by literary scholars as the Contemporary Period, it appears that the refracted public image(xx) whites hold of blacks continues to necessitate ... ...one existing trapped within the view of hegemonic society angry, but incapacitated so long as he remains in this state. Yet Sanchez provides a succinct plan for Black Americans in their quest to a scend the Veil to exist as both African and American while feeding white America a pacifying view of a half truth-destruction fueled by deadly ignorance. The speakers of the poems are merely victims of the same system, seeking the same freedom. While the flora of these authors differ greatly, one characteristic is common in both works The desire for power to ascend the Veil that hangs heavily upon them like a cloak that prevents their ascension. The desire to live beyond the Veil.Works CitedDu Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. New York Bantam, 1989Lauter, Paul, ed. The Heeath Anthology of American Literature Volume Two. New York Houghton Mifflin Inc., 1996