W.E.B. Dubois\' Largely Autobiographical Exploration

¶ … W.E.B. DuBois' largely autobiographical exploration of what it meant to be black in the United States in the period following the Civil War, The Souls of Black Folks, a major metaphor that appears with many shades of meaning is that of the Veil. There is direct physical symbolism in DuBois' use of the term "veil"; he uses it to refer to the division, like a curtain, that lies between the black world and the white world. More specifically, however, it refers to the altered perception that blacks in the United States possessed as a sort of dual consciousness, in DuBois framework, which enabled them to see themselves both as they were and as they were seen by whites. The quoted passage incorporates this metaphor as a means of measuring the freedom that DuBois hopes will one day truly be afforded to people of color, as it is with the tearing off of this veil -- the removal of the dual perception, as well as of the curtain of division -- that will signal true freedom.

The quote also incorporate the motif of light, which also relates to vision. The Veil can be seen as barring blacks in the United States from seeing anything in the world, even something as natural and pure as sunlight, outside of the racial context that makes up their lives. Casting off the Veil would allow the full and singular experience of the world that the whites possess to the blacks, as well. This is the eventuality that DuBois hopes for, and it is not merely intellectually expressed through the symbolism and explicit language of the poem. DuBois also makes an emotional and inspiration statement of hope by playing with the images of a veil and sunlight; the children singing to the sunshine are seen without a veil, and with the sun shining fully on their faces in a certain symbol of hope fulfilled.

The dual perspective of the Veil can also be seen in James Baldwin's "This Morning, This Evening, So Soon," though hope is something more of a stranger in this story. The protagonist's fear of returning to the United States with his white wife and mixed-race son from his now-home in France, where these things don't matter, is directly representative of the type of perspective implied by DuBois' use of the Veil metaphor. Even in France, the narrator/protagonist is seen with a similar dilemma, though based on his nationality rather than his skin color, when he reflects that his Tunisian companion thinks of him as simply an American. Though this may or may not be an accurate assessment of the companion, it is a reflection of the burden of the Veil that this character carries; even his life in France cannot remain untainted by the duality of simply his own racial existence, let alone the more complex racial issue that is family presents in American society, leaving little room for hope.