Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Different Mirror, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Unity vs. Division
Whiteness and the Other
Labor, Profit, and the Building of the Nation
Segregation vs. Assimilation
Citizenship, Identity, and the American Dream
Summary
Analysis
W.E.B. Du Bois argued that “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line.” This problem came to a head during the Second World War, when the US and other countries fought against the explicitly racist Nazi regime. Americans realized that there was hypocrisy in fighting for freedom and equality abroad while intense racist oppression and segregation continued at home.
As this introduction shows, the Second World War helped to radically reorient people’s opinions on race relations in the US due to the sudden presence of a global, comparative perspective brought by the war.
Themes
