Cree Dueker

Professor Hines
BST/ENG 352U
20 February 2015
Identity Through the Veil
Within DuBois The Souls of Black Folk the idea of double consciousness was
introduced. DuBois idea of double consciousness was characterized by two things; the second
sight that is inherent to the Black identity as well as the idea of Black people existing behind
the veil which explores the limitations the veil puts onto the wearer as well as the idea of both
seeing and being seen unclearly due to the shrouded vision. Dubois depicts the curiosity of
identity and being that corresponds to being Black when talking about double consciousness as,
this sense of always looking at ones self through the eye of others...One ever feels his twoness,an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in
one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder (DuBois, 496).
This sense of otherness and living behind a veil is depicted within Richard Wrights The Man
Who Lived Underground. Double consciousness and the realities of the idea are depicted within
this short story as shapers of our main characters identity. Who he is is reliant on the fact that he
is a Black man, and as a Black man he is beneath a veil which conceals and distorts his identity.
When he lives below ground is when he is able to live outside of the constricts of society his
identity is molded by himself and his actions.
Richard Wrights The Man Who Lived Underground is the story of a fugitive on the run
from police. Wright begins his story with the unnamed man seeking shelter away from the police
within a manhole. When he enters he is swept up by the water and almost dies. His journey

within the sewer is wrought with interactions through his veil where he sees a deceased baby
whom mirrors his own tragic fate at the end of the story. He begins to peer on the people
aboveground through different walls that he hides behind to view them while in the sewer. He
digs his way into an mortuary office, a furnace room, a grocery store, as well as spying on a
church ministries choir. The man sees that he is wanted through headlines and towards the end of
the story the reader learns that the mans name is Fred Daniels, a fact that later on he is unable to
recall. This conception of an identity through the journey to his name is then stripped away when
he is unable to recall who he is when confronted by police. His confrontation with police
happens when he tries to confess to his crimes while aboveground as well as what he has been
doing below, he leads them back to the manhole hoping to establish his guilt and instead of
following him in he is shot, his body being swept up by the sewer water, mouth agape just as the
baby he found in the beginning of his journey. His identity and lived experiences are explored
through his actions both when he is above ground and forced to follow the structures of society
as well as when he is underground and alone where we see him living by his own rules. His
personhood and identity which were steadily established during the story are then erased in his
death in which dying, He sighed and closed his eyes, a whirling object rushing alone in the
darkness, veering, tossing, lost in the heart of the earth (Wright, 160).

Within Wrights short story The Man Who Lived Underground he uses this concept of
double consciousness to explore how our main character Fred Daniels is able to exist behind the
veil in which his intentions and sanity cannot clearly be determined both by the reader and by
the other characters that surround him. Daniels is able to interact and enacted ideas of double
consciousness both mentally and physically throughout the story. Mentally his identity is
shrouded because we (the reader) have a limited amount of information about him. His identity

has been decided for him when during the novel he is branded a murderer and beaten by police in
the world above ground as well as being able to escape this world and enter a new world where
he creates a new self-imposed identity. Through gaining his own identity and living below
ground double consciousness can be seen enacted physically in how Daniels decided to spy on
people through the walls which can be seen as a very physical veil, separating himself from those
living their own lives above ground where their identities are dictated by how others view them
as well as the societal structure they live in. Physically it is enacted through the actions of the
police officers who are unable to see the person lying underneath the veil which leads to them
accusing him of murder, then beating him, and then accusing him of being insane when he tries
to reveal the new identity Daniels constructed for himself underground.

The loss of Fred Daniels identity is used in order to proceed into an identity which
represents his better and truer self. The reader is confronted with the loss of Fred Daniels
identity in order to proceed onto a better and truer identity for himself. When Daniels is taken
away from the constraints and values of the world aboveground he is able to shed his former
identity and construct a new one. This construction comes with feelings of alienation because
although he is no longer aboveground he is still dealing with the effects of his double
consciousness and seeing the world from behind a veil. We see in the story how when he is
aboveground his identity is often thrust upon him by others; this can be seen when he is labeled a
murderer by the police which leads him to the underground, when he is mistaken for an
employee at the grocery store, when he is thought to be a patron at the theater, and when he is
seen as an escaped mental patient. When he is able to create his own identity away from the
aboveground it results in his inability to identify himself to the police. Double consciousness can
then be seen as adaptive, it is something to be used as a tool for survival. Living behind the veil

when necessary as well as being able to examine the world and the people in it using the second
sight. Often when he is watching people he judges them based on his perception from behind a
physical barrier but also through his warring identities and viewpoints within himself.

DuBois solution to these two warring selves within one Black body is to reconcile them
and he encourages the Black individual to merge these two warring identities in order to create
one true self. The idea of double consciousness enables identity to be multidimensional and
reliant upon many factors of being. In the case of Daniels identity was reliant upon his Blackness
as well as his own actions and ideals. His identity was formed and manipulated throughout the
story by his place. When he was above ground his identity was that of an unnamed fugitive
seeking refuge from police in the sewer, once he moved below ground his identity shifted to that
of a vaguely unstable man peeking behind a physical veil into the lives of others while remaining
unknown to those he was watching, when he steals diamonds and money Daniels finally reveals
a crucial part of identity which is his name, and then decides to find the police and confess to his
many crimes where his identity is put upon him of being mentally unstable. The police were
viewing him through a veil that hid his true identity and truth of his words. This identity and the
inescapable identity of his Black body are what lead him to be shot by police and finally his
identity is erased through death.

Works Cited
Chapman, Abraham, and Richard Wright. "The Man Who Lived Underground." Black Voices:
An Anthology of African-American Literature. New York: Signet Classic, 2001. N. pag.
Print.
Dubois, W.E.B. "The Souls of Black Folk." Black Voices: An Anthology of African-American
Literature. By Abraham Chapman. New York: Signet Classic, 2001. N. pag. Print.