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Irony
Definition of Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor can be stated explicitly, as... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other... read full definition
Key Examples in The Souls of Black Folk
Chapter 1: Of Our Spiritual Strivings
Explanation and Analysis—Sturm and Drang:
Toward the end of Chapter 1, Du Bois bemoans the fact that, in his day and age, the bright ideals of the past—Black education and advancement, equal rights, civic responsibility—have largely gone by the wayside as the grim reality of stubborn systemic racism has set in. He employs metaphor to detail his feelings on the matter:
So dawned the time of Sturm and Drang: storm and stress to-day rocks our little boat on the mad waters of the world-sea; there is within and without the sound of conflict, the burning of body and the rending of soul; inspiration strives with doubt, and faith with vain questionings.
Chapter 2: Of the Dawn of Freedom
Explanation and Analysis—Fly in the Ointment:
In Chapter 2, Du Bois gives an overview of the Freedmen's Bureau's efforts to assist recently liberated Black Americans during the Reconstruction era, immediately following the Civil War. In an excerpt from this section included below, Du Bois utilizes both metaphor and idiom to emphasize for the reader just how ineffective these efforts were:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The agents that the Bureau could command varied all the way from unselfish philanthropists to narrow-minded busybodies and thieves; and even though it be true that the average was far better than the worst, it was the occasional fly that helped spoil the ointment.
Related Themes:
Chapter 3: Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others
Explanation and Analysis—Contradicting Washington:
Over the course of Chapter 3, Du Bois dismantles Washington's pacifying rhetoric, observing the very real damage it can inflict in the long term. To emphasize the ever-evolving, extended nature of this damage, Du Bois employs the following metaphor:
Unlock with LitCharts A+We have no right to sit silently by while the inevitable seeds are sown for a harvest of disaster to our children, black and white.
Related Themes:
Chapter 5: Of the Wings of Atlanta
Explanation and Analysis—The Flower of Freedom:
Du Bois takes care to imbue Chapter 5 of The Souls of Black Folk with a multitude of literary references and a generous smattering of figurative language. One particular simile stands out, nestled within a broader allusion to the story of Atalanta and Hippomenes:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Must this, and that fair flower of Freedom which, despite the jeers of latter-day striplings, sprung from our fathers' blood, must that too degenerate into a dusty quest of gold, — into lawless lust with Hippomenes?
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Black People as Children:
Toward the beginning of Chapter 5, Du Bois situates the entire "race" of Black Americans in an inferior position to their white counterparts, using an infantilizing metaphor to do so:
Unlock with LitCharts A+In the soul-life of the land [the Black man] is today, and naturally will long remain, unthought of, half-forgotten; and yet when he does come to think and will do it for himself, — and let no man dream that day will never come — then the part he plays will not be one of sudden learning, but words and thoughts he has been taught to lisp in his race-childhood.
