In The Souls of Black Folk W.E.B. Du Bois coined the concept of “double-consciousness” to mean a “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” (p.38). Du Bois is referring to the experience of African Americans and how they affect their self-perception. The split is between their identity as a black person and an American; “two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body” (p.38). These two identities are described as “strife” or unable to reconcile with one another while being held in the same body. With the double consciousness comes “this longing to attain self conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self” (p.39) in a way that does not hinder or erase one or the other.
David Krasner portrays the concept of double consciousness in Rewriting The Body: Aida Overton Walker and the Social Formation of Cakewalking through Walker’s struggle with “the pressure to conform to black middle-class values” and “a desire to succeed in the white theatrical world” (p.82). Krasner quotes DuBois’ definition of double consciousness; “One ever feels his twoness” – and calls it an “axiom of black life” and a “duality.” Krasner analyzes how double consciousness affected Walker’s choreographic choices to create a “hybridized” version of “African and Western aesthetic forms” (p.82). This can be seen as Walker’s attempt to reconcile her double consciousness by hybridizing the dance forms in a way that does not lose or erase the other.
Works Cited
Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt. “Of Our Spiritual Strivings.” The Souls of Black Folk, A. C. McClurg et Co, Chicago, IL, 1903, pp. 37–44.
Krasner, David. “Rewriting the Body: Aida Overton Walker and the Social Formation of Cakewalking.” Theatre Survey 37.2 (1996): 67–92. Web.
