Double Consciousness Essay ⋆ Sociology Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

This Double Consciousness Essay example is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic, please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.

When W. E. B. Du Bois introduced the concept of ”double consciousness in his literary and autobiographical masterpiece, The Souls of Black Folk (1903), the idea of doubleness was already a major motif in the literary works of many notable authors. A restatement of the salient features of Du Bois views on double consciousness permits us to focus on both the origins and consequences of this doubleness. In addition, a reassessment permits us to approach the concept from contemporary sociological perspectives in order to focus on its possible utility in the current era. The core of Du Bois on double consciousness is as follows: (1) it denies an objective consciousness; (2) the ”other becomes the eye through which the world is viewed; (3) it creates an internal warfare between black and white values and norms; (4) ultimately, the black and white selves may merge into a more creative and unique self; and (5) the struggle to appease black and white strivings has greatly handicapped an already distraught and oppressed black population.

Du Bois metaphor of the double as ”two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body has been taken by many to refer to the hopelessness of the task facing blacks. The reality was far different from the picture painted by Du Bois. There was nothing in the black body or mind which mitigated against freedom for itself, hence, Du Bois led us sociologically into a blind alley by explaining the issue primarily as an internal battle, an internal war in which the black body was warring against itself. In reality, the war was external to the black body and stitched into fabric of the social structure.

As problematic as double consciousness might be, Du Bois, when one reads the social contexts in which the concept is used, situated the concept in a sociology of black life, though he did not draw the obvious conclusions when he used the term. What must be asserted, however, is the reality that consciousness of whatever type, must emerge from the lived experiences of the people. One part of Du Bois logic is correct: Consciousness must originate in the economic and social relations within the society. One of the difficulties of tracing double consciousness is that, like so many examples in Du Bois sociology, he does not consistently utilize the same terms throughout his empirical and theoretical works. And he does not delineate or even hint at the concept elsewhere in Souls of Black Folk outside of chapters one and ten. Nor does he use the concept in his subsequent works. This may mean that he really did not consider the concept as a major definer of black life in America. The question must be raised as to the term s sociological relevance, theoretically and methodically. Was the term merely of metaphorical value to Du Bois, and does it raise more questions than it answers or resolves. Though the concept is widely used today to refer to groups other than blacks — women, homosexuals, and other ethnic and racial groups — we might be faced with the reality that the Du Boisian idea of the double consciousness may best be observed and understood as a legacy developed out of literary works and the legacy of psychology as a discipline which analyzes the internal dynamics of the self. In this manner, the term can be closely allied to the concept of individual and group identity.

Bibliography:

Dennis, R. M. (2003) Du Bois and double consciousness: myth or reality. In: Stone, J. & Dennis, R. M. (eds) Race and Ethnicity: Comparative and Theoretical Approaches. Blackwell, Malden, MA.