Darkwater: Voice From Within the Veil, by Term Paper

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Darkwater: Voice From Within the Veil, by W.E.B Du Bois. Specifically, it will discuss the philosophy behind the book, and what Du Bois was trying to convey to his readers.

DARKWATER have seen the human drama from a veiled corner, where all the outer tragedy and comedy have reproduced themselves in microcosm within" (Du Bois 483).

Many people consider W.E.B. Du Bois to be one of the most influential African-Americans to work and write before the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Written in 1920, "Darkwater" has become a classic in African-American non-fiction. He believed Africans should govern themselves and argued seriously for the end of colonial rule in Africa. Many of the essays in this book also carry this central theme.

Colonies, we call them, these places where "niggers" are cheap and the earth is rich; they are those outlands where like a swarm of hungry locusts white masters may settle to be served as kings, wield the lash of slave-drivers, rape girls and wives, grow as rich as Croesus and send homeward a golden stream (Du Bois 505).

However, "Although Darkwater as a volume was sparked by the intersection of African anti-colonialism and the American struggle for racial justice during the war, those concerns and several of Du Bois's original essays dated from earlier years" (Du Bois 482).

Another central theme to the work is the role of black women in the economy of racial oppression, and several essays plead for the elevation of black women in black society, and point out how oppressing the women only succeeds in oppressing the race. Mingled with these sober and often disturbing themes are essays celebrating beauty and the richness of life, and lyrical poetry celebrating God, nature, and love. These different types of writing succeed in making the book a collage of serious and sundry themes, making it infinitely more readable and enjoyable to the reader.

Du Bois writes with the elegance of one who knows he can write, and paint vivid pictures.

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He says of his grandfather, "Uncle Tallow," he was "a brown man, strong-voiced and redolent with tobacco, who sat stiffly in a great high chair because his hip was broken. He was probably a bit lazy and given to wassail" (Du Bois 486). These rich descriptions of people and places flow throughout the book, giving it depth and allowing the reader to glimpse a little of black life at the turn of the 20th century. He uses the same lyrical description to paint a picture of the denigration of Blacks and their hopeless lives, which led to the race riots in East St. Louis in 1917. "They saw a people with heads bloody, but unbowed, working faithfully at wages fifty percent lower than the wages of the nation and under conditions which shame civilization, saving homes, training children, hoping against hope" (Du Bois 527).

Throughout the book, Du Bois interjects his own experience and political beliefs to make his point and continue his themes. Early on, he travels to Europe and discovers a freedom and lack of prejudice that does not exist in the U.S. "I felt myself standing, not against the world, but simply against American narrowness and color prejudice, with the greater, finer world at my back urging me on" (Du Bois 491).

Throughout the book, another theme is also constantly interwoven - that of Du Bois' own anger and outrage at the hate and prejudice in the U.S. His essay "The Souls of White Folk" builds on this theme with great clarity and dignity. He discusses the lowering of Blacks in society, and the repulsiveness of prejudice because of color and race. "A true and worthy ideal frees and uplifts a people; a false ideal imprisons and lowers" (Du Bois 500). "At times I almost pitied my pale companions, who were not of the Lord's anointed and who saw in their dreams no splendid quests of golden fleeces" (Du Bois….....

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