The Souls of Black Folks by DuBois - Essay Example

DuBois wrote of The Souls of Black Folks as a means to voice out his personal opinions and thoughts about the status of Black men in the society, especially where one stands in a society of White men. His book, which tells stories of his own experiences, allows the readers a glimpse of the lives of African Americans and how they strive, even within themselves, an identity on which they would be recognized and treated fair and just. Dubois highlighted in his work that “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line” (p.8). This was stated at the start of his forethought emphasizing that this perspective encompasses what was written within the entire work. This statement can also be found in different sections of the book even more emphasizing how Dubois believes that the division of the society based on the skin color of the people has greatly impacted the interactions of people within the society, that is between dark-skinned and fair-skinned people. He creates the symbolism of a Veil that describes how African Americans, and other dark-skinned men at that, are separated from the world they are living in. Living in a predominantly white society, African Americans living in the American society face different kinds of unjust and unfair treatment. There is somehow a shield or a Veil that separates the two worlds though living in the same space. But even in this line of thought, Dubois himself was able to break free from that Veil, from the division, by being able to engage himself in the activities that the White men believe Blacks cannot. He became a university graduate. He was able to present his thoughts with great impact, especially through his work The Souls of Black Folks. He was also able to show, even within his work, how African Americans can integrate themselves within the society that is evidently has divisions. Dubois presented the concept of dual consciousness which allowed the readers to see how African Americans even within themselves are separated. African Americans are torn within themselves because of their culture and color and their citizenship. African Americans struggle everyday with segregation, discrimination and restrictions of their activities. They struggle everyday fighting for their human rights and beliefs that they, too, are part of the society they are living in. And while they are struggling for their own identity in a world which doesn’t readily accept that they, too, have the same rights as human beings, they also struggle within themselves seeing the world in two eyes, with American eyes and with African American eyes. Because of the division brought about by color lines, African Americans tend to feel separated from the society they are living in by a metaphorical Veil, which tends to place themselves outside of the society. And because of this, most African Americans stay within their Veil. Dubois work pointed out the historical struggle of African Americans to be part of the society they are living in. And through this, he was able to show the success of their fight for just and fair treatment. When before African Americans fought using violence, eventually they learned how to fight through words that impacted how the American society and how the world see them now. The previous fights though were not in vain as it allowed people to see that they know their rights and through this, later fights emphasized on how previous struggles, especially against slavery, brought about the realization of the present world of what and who the African Americans are and can be. The value of freedom and justice was brought about by the tragic history and the triumphant success of the emancipation of the Black society. Twain’s A Telephonic Conversation is a satiric poetry that focuses on a one-sided telephone conversation of a female while a man is at the background unintentionally listening to her. It describes of the situation as something queer as one hears only one side of the conversation and cannot make out the entire sense of the conversation as the exposure was limited and restricted to whoever was physically there. Twain wrote this poetry during the early times of the telephone’s invention. His work was one of the earliest commentaries about the telephone and telephone conversations. The Telephonic Conversation starts off with describing the situation of a female calling the central office to transfer a call to a friend. In this introduction, it was suggested that females are too shy to call the central office to make a transferred call. This indicated how females in 1870s were not described as forward and bold as compared to the female of the modern times. Twain also suggested in his work how female telephone conversations went, how it can be lengthy and prolonged with no indication of importance or structure in the messages it delivers. His comparison point is the prolonged goodbyes of the females. The poetry indicated that it takes time to say goodbye with female users as with male users, where when saying goodbye, they are abrupt and put down the phone in an instant. For females, though, there is a prolonged stated of goodbyes, by which they tend to talk still about something that pops in their mind. This description indicates the differences of conversation approach of men and women. Whereas men are abrupt and straight to the point, and use telephone conversations in conveying important and straight messages with no in-betweens or trivial stories, females tend to use the telephone to carry on stories the same way they carry on face-to-face conversations, with the same heightened emotions and feelings and the same unstructured storytelling, jumping from one topic to another. This shows how Twain sees the difference between males and females in terms of carrying out telephone conversations. The telephone conversation starts out with a hello, which was a word invented by the inventor of the telephone, Edison, to solve the problem of addressing the invisible caller on the other line. It then stretches on to a lengthy and trivial one-sided conversation full of dead airs and pauses. Twain actually creates a humor in the use of the telephone. It was an invention intended to facilitate and aid communication of people but it shows that it can be a hindrance at some point like when the female was asking, “what did you say,” and “oh no, I didn’t mean that.” This clearly shows that this invention does not entirely erase the concept of miscommunication. Twain’s work suggests that the telephone is one queer invention that may facilitate communication but may also hamper it because of the presented possibilities of miscommunication of how one may sound like. Also, Twain’s work indicates the differences of males and females by which they handle telephone conversations. A Telephonic Conversation actually describes that at the early times of its invention Twain saw immediately the intricacies brought about by this piece of technology to human interaction. Both works of Dubois and Twain, then, suggests that presenting the course of history and describing the facts of the situation and the matters taken into discussion is important in making people realize the merits of the actions taken to create change in the society. This can be seen in Dubois’ presentation of the struggle and triumphs of the African Americans and Twain’s presentation of the effects of technology in the interaction of people. Read More