Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk, a collection of autobiographical and historical essays contains many themes. Themes such as souls and their attainment of consciousness and the theme of double consciousness appear in many of the compositions. However, one of the most striking themes is that of "the veil." The veil provides a link between the 14 seemingly unconnected essays that make up The Souls Of Black Folk. Mentioned at least once in most of the essays it means that, "the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second sight in this American world, -a world with yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others." The veil is a metaphor for the separation and invisibility of black life and existence in America and is a reoccurring theme in books about black life in America.The veil metaphor in The Souls Of Black Folk is symbolic of the invisibility of blacks in America. Du Bois says that Blacks in America are a forgotten people, "after the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil." The invisibility of Black existence in America is one of the reasons why Du Bois writes The Souls Of Black Folk in order to elucidate the "invisible" history and strivings of Black Americans, "I have sought here to sketch, in vague, uncertain outline, the spiritual world in which ten thousand Americans live and strive." Du Bois in each of the following chapters tries to manifest the strivings of Black existence from that of the reconstruction period to the black spirituals and the stories of rural black children that he tried to educate. Du Bois in The Souls Of Black Folk is grappling with trying to establish some sense of history and memory for Black Americans,...
