Double consciousness speaks of the dual identity of members of the African Diaspora who experience an internal struggle between their black heritage and the mark of the European that has been imposed upon them, whether by blood, through the rape of their ancestral mothers or by their forced immersion into an environment dominated by the European master.
W. E. B. Du Bois is very explicit in presenting this conflict in his book, The Soul’s of Black Folk: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, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,--a world which 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, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.
One ever feels his twoness,--an American, a Negro; two warring souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. But double consciousness goes far beyond the simplistic definition that is dictated by our brutal past, as Paul Jay sites in his piece,“Hybridity, Identity and Cultural Commerce in Claude McKay's Banana Bottom”, there are current elements of the discourse on double consciousness that have been overlooked or not examined sufficiently.Jay examines two authors that support this view, namely, Robert Young and Paul Gilroy. They highlight the following: Robert J. C.
Young notes in his work entitled Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture, and Race, “comparatively little attention has been paid. . . to the mechanics of the intricate processes of cultural contact, intrusion, fusion and disjunction" that characterize the development of culture wherever different social systems intermix” (5).Paul Gilroy makes a similar point at the outset of The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (1993) when he complains that "modern black political culture has always been more interested in the relationship of identity to roots and rootedness than in seeing identity as a process of movement and mediation that is more appropriately approached via the homonym routes" (19).But whether the discourse on double consciousness has been limited or not, there are African American and Caribbean writers who have made significant contributions to the literary world, and have deliberately, or unconsciously, been able to move beyond these limitations and have addressed more contemporary issues such as cultural fusion, hybridity, creolization, and mestizaje .
The purpose of this essay is to pay attention to these four issues as they speak to the current cultural global climate and primarily their relevance as reflected in the works Derek Walcott, and more briefly, in selected works of Langston Hughes and Claude McKay.Omeros, while being a modern Homeric piece, addresses the issue of double consciousness on several levels. Just the use of the European, Homeric epic pattern in a tropical, Caribbean setting, with the protagonist engaged in a quest for his African past, sets one up to look at the conflicting relationship that the black man has with Europe and Africa. Beyond the setting of this piece the paper will examine other elements of form such as characterization, and symbolism, which present the concept of double consciousness.While it may be taken for granted that the dichotomy existing in the consciousness of a person of African descent living in the Americas, is in constant conflict, I wish to examines the characters of this poem to determine if there is an instance where peace exists internally, and that there is evidence that the character is reconciled with his environment. As one examines the selected poems of Claude Mc Kay and Langston Hughes, the internal conflict of the characters/narrators is hard to miss.
In Tropics in New York McKay describes what could be tropical fruit and vegetables that are found in a New York market, but these serve to transport the narrator to a tropical setting where the items would have grown naturally. While the narrator is transported in his mind, the reality of where he dwells eventually comes to the fore-front of his mind, and this creates a longing for the tropics, the place where he had grown. The reader experiences the almost tangible pain of the narrator who exists in one world but is constantly reminded of his place of origin.In Theme for English B, Hughes paints elements of the New York landscape which are familiar to him, but he also cites elements of human experience that he and his white instructor share.
The narrator proposes that these commonalities serve to unite the lives of the white teacher and the black student, as Americans. Although the poet poses questions, which may seem to present a conflict within, these may also be considered rhetorical in nature, the answers pointing to commonality and rather than irreconcilable differences.As I continue to look at the general discourse revolving around the notion of double consciousness, I propose to determine whether the works of the artists I have chosen to cite, present the hope that the black man has the hope of arriving at a state of manhood, which Du Bois speaks of, and that in this state, a member of the African Diaspora, resolves his internal conflict, and holds the assurance that his environment allows this reconciled self to grow and thrive.
