The Souls Of Black Folks Analysis

The Souls of Black Folks by W.E.B DuBois is a collection of essays that describe the plight, education, rise, and experience of the black community in America. The essays are connected through themes and motifs, but not directly connected through storyline or characters. In the first essay DuBois tells readers about the Veil, and briefly, his experience living behind it. The veil what separates the lives of the black folk from that of the whites. While the black can understand what life was like for Americans outside of and within their group, the white could not understand their experience from outside the Veil. Dubois establishes this as one main reason behind racism. The Souls of Black Folk attempts to give the reader an idea of what it was like behind the Veil. The next four essays can be grouped together as describing the the color line that separated the whites from the blacks in most aspects of life, but specifically education. The author uses describes the importance of education in the process of overcoming oppression. He tells stories of his time teaching in an ever industrializing community. He tells how …show more content…
Many narratives take place in the “Deep South” or New England. The contrast of these two places shows how different racism in the antiquated, labor heavy Deep South, and the progressive, then industrializing New England was. Racism was existent in both places, but the north was just more discreet about it. DuBois shows this by telling about how when he was a teacher, a white family invited him to dinner, which he thought was the nicest thing a white person had ever done for him though. He then found out that the Veil was prevalent as he was asked to wait till everyone else was done with their food before he ate. DuBois sets the historical setting of the book ranges from the mid to late Nineteenth Century- specifically starting the year before the Emancipation Proclamation,