The Souls of Black Folks in Fences: A Du Boisian Reading of August Wilson’s Fences

Abstract

In the last decades, racial diversity has become central to an ongoing public conversation in the United States of America. However, Americans are coming to understand that the roots of American society are multiracial, and that all American have been shaped to some degree by the national response to race and the presence of African people in America. Considering the problems of discriminations, Brenda Gottschild argues “We desperately need to cut through the convoluted web of racism that denies acknowledgement of the African part of the whole” (Gottschild, 3). In the same way, African American critics and writers, like August Wilson, have presented some ways in their works in order to make the black nation of America get aware of and then stick to their African traditions to attain a respected social standing. For example, In Fences, Wilson’s most prominent play, he showed how a working-class family struggles to find economic security and equality through elements of African culture.In the same way, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, during his life, tried to encourage African American to understand the richness of their culture, as he believed cultural achievements would do move to break down race prejudice. He presented his idea about cultural struggle in his inspiring work Souls of Black Folks (1903).