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

career Behind the Veil in Du Bois The Souls of Black FolkDu Bois metaphor of soprano consciousness and his theory of the Veil are the most inclusive story of the ever-present plight of modern African the Statesns ever produced. In his 19th hundred work, The Souls of Black Folks, Du Bois describes double consciousness as a anomalous sensation. . . the sense of always looking at ones self done the look of others, of measuring ones soul by the tape 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 Negro(3). Further, he theorizes, the African American lives shut behind a veil, viewing from in spite of appearance and without it. He is privy to white Americas perspective of him, yet he cannot reveal his authentic self. He is, in fact, protected and harmed by The Veil.Nearly a century later, Henry Louis provide, Jr., himself a Harvard scholar, addresses the anomaly of the Afro-American as he has existed for the one-time(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 translation of a biased party that will apply an erroneous definition. Gates states that the Afro Americans attempt to gain self-consciousness in a racist community will always be impaired by the fact that either 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 defined 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 powerless so long as he remains in this state. Yet Sanchez provides a succinct be after for Black Americans in their quest to ascend the Veil to exist as both African and American while feeding white America a pacifying view of a half truth-destruction fueled by destructive ignorance. The speakers of the poems are merely victims of the same system, seeking the same freedom. While the whole kit of these authors differ greatly, one characteristic is common in both whole caboodle 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. newfound York Bantam, 1989Lauter, Paul, ed. The Heeath Anthology of American Literature Volume Two. New York Houghton Mifflin Inc., 1996