To Feel 'the Veil': W. E. B. Du Bois' "Of the Coming of John"

A single text of collected essays, W. E. B. Du Bois' The Souls of Black Folk (1903) is often read and referenced as separate chapters. The first chapter "Of Our Spiritual Strivings" is by far the most widely and thoroughly examined, as it is here that Du Bois introduces three of his most famous philosophical terms: double-consciousness, veil, and the color-line. While it is important for students of African American literature to appreciate the complex dynamics of racial relations that can in illumined through a careful study of this chapter, this paper concentrates on the thirteenth chapter in the collection, the only short story in Du Bois' seminal work, "Of the Coming of John." I argue that Du Bois' critical project of delineating the tragic fate of a black man living with the racist veil can be further appreciated through a reading of the story that attends to the writer's stylistic choice of point of view and his use of the first person plural. I suggest that the "we" narration foregrounds the sense of the black John's objectification and victimization as a black man in a society overdetermined by rigid racial categories. This is not to suggest that the black community enacts and assumes an oppressive role, but that the story's presentation of John through the eyes of "we" and "us" highlights his marginalization. Moreover, a shift in the tone adopted in the first person plural effectively works to urge readers for modification in views on race. I thus contend that in "Of the Coming of John," Du Bois' project of presenting a treacherously violent familiar narrative of black oppression is achieved through the writer's critical inscription and exercise of his authorial voice, deftly subtended by his narrative stylistics.