Summary Of The Smoke By W. E. B. Dubois

Fisk University, founded for the children of emancipated slaves, developed into a haven for African Americans to learn without any “rac[ial] considerations” taken place (“Song” 194). W.E.B. Du Bois attended this University and developed and awareness of the crisis of the “color line” within black and white societies, both races believing that the lighter the skin, the better (194). Du Bois himself, born a light-skinned black man, realized the importance of accepting his race as a whole and disregarding the hue of his skin. Du Bois craved the ability to impact the world with his beliefs, so he turned to different forms of writing, including poetry, in order to present these beliefs regarding the “problem of the color line” (“Song” 195). Specifically, Du Bois’ “The Song of the Smoke” uses tropes and schemes to express the shift in tone from despairingly
Du Bois’ use of parallelism conveys his belief that the “blacker” one seems or acts, the “mightier the man” (line 28:197). He calls to his people, telling them to embrace their skin color as a benefit, not a hindrance, because it gives them power and hope to overcome the whites (“Summary” 199). He then uses anaphora to emphasize the white man’s immorality by “daubing God in night” and “swabbing Hell in white” (lines 30-31:197). Du Bois places African Americans on a pedestal and compares them to the innocence of God, also showing a relationship to whiteness and the vileness of Hell (199). Du Bois ends with an encouragement and a call to his people by using alliteration, stating that although their history seems “gritty [and] grimy,” it really remains “great” (line 41:197). This statement calls to the African Americans, telling them to remember their history because it makes them a community that united as one through their suffering, therefore providing them with a hope to one day reunite through that suffering