The Souls Of Black Folks

2 Pages 519 Words

“The Souls of Black Folk”

W. E. B. Du Bois uses metaphors frequently in his writings to describe the feelings and life of being black. He discusses how people were treated, how they were looked at by white Americans, progression of the changing world, and how a Negro would not change, doing so by using metaphors. Du Bois discusses this in the four following metaphors.
One metaphor in Du Bois’s writing is “shut out from their world by a vast veil.” This metaphor is referring to the black Americans and white Americans being different. The black Americans were treated differently. The black Americans think that they are as unimportant as the whites’ think they are. Also, meaning that the white Americans cannot accept the blacks as Americans because of their skin color. The blacks did not have a chance to show the withes who they really were or show Americans what they could offer them.
The second metaphor is “of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world.” This means that the blacks could not act the way they wanted to. The blacks had to act the way the whites wanted them. They did not have the chance to form their own opinions because what ever it was it was probably wrong in a white Americans eyes. The blacks had to look through their eyes as them being a Negro. They had to look at themselves as not being Americans even if they wanted to. They had to deal with their conscious pulling them from one world to another.

Another metaphor that Du Bois wrote is “another pillar of fire by night after a clouded day.” This metaphor could mean different things to different people. It could mean that after not having freedom or seeing any progression in their life for so long that it was finally looking better. A “clouded day,” meaning ugly, nasty day and “a pillar of fire by night,” meaning progression or seeing that things are changing for the better. The blacks lived the way white Americans w...