The Souls of Black Folks by W.E.B DuBois: Chapter 1: Of Our Spiritual Striving - Analysis

Themes

·       A yearning that is never satisfied

·       Blacks are a problem in America

·       The struggle of the blacks is never openly addressed

·       Negro as seventh son

·       Desire to outdo whites

·       Blacks hate whites

·       Blacks are subservient to whites

·       Blacks are strangers in their own house

·       Blacks have no identity of their own

·       The black identity is dual and conflicting: American and Negro

·       The struggle to build an identity out of merging of the two

·       Love-hate relationship with African culture

·       Not knowing what to do with freedom

·       Path to true freedom through voting and education

·       Education takes a long time

·       A combination of work, culture and liberty are needed for black empowerment

·       Black culture and lore is at the heart of America

Style and devices

·       Flowery language

“That sky was bluest when I could beat my mates at examination time, or beat them at a foot-race, or even beat their stringy heads.”

·       Drama

“One ever feels his two-ness, and an American, a Negro; two souls, tow thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”

·       Figurative language

“He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of opportunity closed roughly in his face.”

·       Referring to the black man as "he"

“He began to have a dim feeling that, to attain his place in the world, he must be himself, and not another. For the first time he sought to analyze the burden he bore upon his back”

·       Run on sentences

“But before that nameless prejudice that leaps beyond all this he stands helpless, dismayed, and well-nigh speechless; before that personal disrespect and mockery, the ridicule and systematic humiliation, the distortion of fact and wanton license of fancy, the cynical ignoring of the better and the boisterous welcoming of the worse, the all-pervading desire to inculcate disdain for everything black, from Toussaint to the devil, — before this there rises a sickening despair that would disarm and discourage any nation save that black host to whom "discouragement" is an unwritten word.”

Places and People

·       Hoosac

·       Taghkanic

·       New England

·       Egyptian, Indian, Greek, Roman, Teuton, Mongolian

·       Africa

·       Canaan

Keywords

·       The other world (whites)

·       veil

·       Black=Negro="the darker ones"

·       America

·       American

·       Power

·       Problem

·       Childhood words

·       Emancipation/ liberty/ freedom

W.E.B DuBois