The Eve of the Harlem Renaissance
W. E. B. DuBois (II)
Hisao Kishimoto
VI
In the preface of The Quest of the Silver Fleece W.E.B. DuBois said that "He who would tell a tale must look toward three ideals: to tell it well, to tell it beautifully, and to tell the truth. The first is the Gift of God, the second is the Vision of Genius, but the third is the Reward of Honesty. In The Quest of the Silver Fleece there is little,
I ween, divine or ingenious; but, at least, I have been honest."") To be sure, DuBois told the truth in this novel which is more sociological and educational than fictional.
In sociological terms the novel is a study of the cotton industry in the South. As Robert A. Bone and Hugh M. Gloster pointed out,
"The influence of Frank Norris' The Octopus (1901) and The Pit (1903) are evident.26) As DuBois was a professor of economic and history of Atlanta University as well as a black it is natural that this theme was the most interesting matter for him. In the South, the cotton was the economic base and blacks' fate was strongly entwined with it.
So cotton, in other words, the silver fleece, was a symbol of their fate. For. blacks, "above all and in all, rushing through, piled and flying, bound and baled—was cotton. Cotton was currency; cotton was merchandise; cotton was conversation. "27) The archetypical Southern landlord represented by Colonel Cresswell shares that view. "Ameri- can cotton-spinning supremacy is built on cheap cotton; cheap cotton
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is built on cheap niggers. "28) DuBois describes the landlord in the chapter entitled "The Rape of the Fleece" as follows:
The lords of the soil stood round, gauging their cotton, measuring their men ... In the long run public opinion determines all wages,
but in more primitive times and places, private opinion, personal judgment of some man in power, determines. The Black Belt is primitive and the landlord wields the power.
"What about Johnson?" calls the head clerk .
"Well
, he's a faithful nigger and needs encouragement; cancel his debt and give him ten dollars for Christmas." Colonel Cresswell glowed, as if he were full of the season's spirit.
"And Sanders?"
"How's his cotton?"
"Good
, and a lot of it."
"He's trying to get away
. Keep him in debt, but let him draw what he wants."")
In the same manner the Colonel deprives Zora of her cotton. Zora is helpless: "she never thought of appeal to courts, for Colonel Cress- well was Justice of the Peace and his son was bailiff. "30) The wall in her way is too big to break down; however, three years later when Zora comes back to Tooms County to help her people, she organizes black sharecloppers into a cooperative settlement. At this point, the novel reflects DuBois' socialist bearings. He was a member of Socialist Party at that time.31) Representing DuBois' point of view that a weapon against the Southern caste system is the unity of white and black
slaves. Aunt Rachel says, "Durned if I don't think these white slaves
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and black slaves had ought ter git together," and Zora agrees saying,
"I think so
, too."") Thus, this novel not only describes the situation of Southern cotton belt but also proposes a solution to the problems inherent in that socio-economic system.
The novel also deals with the problem of education of blacks. At first we see Zora as a primitive girl living in the swamp:
Amid this mighty halo, as on clouds of flame, a girl was dancing.
She was black, and lithe, and tall, and willowy. Her garments twined and flew around the delicate moulding of her dark, young,
half-naked limbs. A heavy mass of hair clung motionless to her wide forehead. Her arms twirled and flickered, and body and soul
seemed quivering and whirring in the poetry of her motion.
As she danced she sang. He heard her voice as before, fluttering like a bird's in the full sweetness of her utter music.33)
Zora doesn't like school, and after entering school she continually lies to her teachers. She also doesn't like work. In the eyes of the whites she is a typical black, and as the daughter of a conjure woman and a woman who was forced to pleasures of her former master, she is also a symbol of oppressed blacks under the Southern caste system.
The effect of education on her is minimal at first; however, after becoming Mrs. Vanderpool's maid she changes until finally she reaches the point where determines to help black people. When Zora became a pupil, Miss Taylor who "found lying customary in this community ... looked at Zora disapprovingly . . .34) and "regarded Zora as a very undesirable person from every point of view"35); however:
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Slower, subtler, but more striking was the change in Zora, as she began to earn bits of pin money in the office and to learn to sew.
Dresses hung straighter; belts served a better purpose; stockings were smoother; underwear was dainteir ... All this came much more slowly and spasmodically than one tells it. Few noticed the change much; none noticed all; and yet there came a night--a student's social—when with a certain suddenness the whole school, teachers and pupils, realized the newness of the girl, and even Bles was startled ... The change in Zora, however, had been neither cataclys- mic nor revolutionary and it was yet far—very far—from complete.
She still ran and romped in the woods, and dreamed her dreams;
she still was passionately independent and "queer. "36)
After receiving Mrs. Vanderpool's training and returning to the country where she brings the contract problem to court (once she had been powerless when confronting Colonel Cresswell), the sheriff and Colonel Cresswell are acutely awore of . the transformation she . has undergone:
Of course, she was simply a black girl but she was an educated woman, who knew things about the Cresswell plantations that it was unnecessary to air in court ... Particularly was Colonel Cress- well stirred to action. He realized that in Bles and Zora he was dealing with a younger class of educated black folk, who were learn- ing tofight with new weapons. Th{ey were, he was sure, as dissolute and weak as their parents, but they were shrewder and more aspir-
ing.37)
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Bles also shows the pronounced effect of education:
"Isn't Bles developing splendidly?" she said to Miss Smith one after - noon. There was an unmistakable note of enthusiasm in her voice.
Miss Smith slowly closed her letter-file but did not look up.
"Yes
," she said crisply. "He's eighteen now—quite a man."
"And most interesting to talk with ."")
Later Bles' ability is developed until he passes the examination for the treasury clerckship and he is appointed to the position of clerk.
He then becomes an orator under the influence of Miss Wynn.
The old-sytle Negro politicians are no match for them, and the crowd of officeholders are rather bewildered. Strong measures are needed. Educated men of earnestness and ability might stem the tide. And I believe I know one such man. He spoke at a big meet- ing last night at the Metropolitan church. His name is Alwyn.39)
The description continues:
He had the voice, the presence, the ideas, and above all he was intensely in earnest. There were other colored orators with voice, presence, and eloquence; but their people knew their record and discounted them. Alwyn was new, clear, and sincere, and the black folk hung on his words. Large and larger crowds greeted him until he was the central figure in a half dozen great negro mass- meetings in the cheif cities of the country, culminating in New York the night before election.4o)
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DuBois thus emphasized the importance of education through his main characters. However, underlying this emphasis is the contro- versy between DuBois and Booker T. Washington. In this novel Du- Bois seems to criticize Washington's ideas. Mrs. Vanderpool, Mary Taylor, Dr. Boldish and Mrs. Grey are the representatives of Washing- ton's views. Mrs. Vanderpool says:
Oh, `educating' ? The word conceals so much. Now, I take it the Cresswells would object to instructing them in French and in dinner etiquette and tea-gowns, and so, in fact, would I; but teach them how to handle a hoe and to sew and cook. I have reason to know that people like the Cresswells would be delighted.41>
Mary Taylor, a teacher change, originally thinks
at the black school along the same lines
whose ideas eventually as Mrs. Vanderpool:
At the same time Mary Taylor had come to some other definite conculsions; she believed it wrong to encourage the ambitions of
these children to any great extent; she believed they should be ser- vants and farmers, content to work under present conditions until those conditions could be changed; and she believed that the local white aristocracy, helped by Northern philanthropy, should take charge of such gradual changes.42)
Mrs. Grey tried to make the to Miss Smith that:
school into a cooking school and said
Your heart is good, but you need --- 50 --
strong
practical advice . ..One
condition is that my friend, Mr. Cresswell here, and these other gentlemen, including sound Northern business men like Mr. Easterly, shall hold this money in trust, and expend it for your school as they
think best. 43)
On the side of DuBois, Miss Smith expressed her idea. When Robert, who wants to quit the school before graduation, comes to see Miss Smith, she persuades him to complete his education and develop his talent:
Robert, farming is a noble calling. Whether you're suited to it or not, I don't yet know, but I'd like nothing better than to see you settled here in a decent home with a family, running a farm. But, Robert, farming doesn't call for less intelligence than other things; it calls for more. It is because the world thinks any training good enough for a farmer that the Southern farmer is to-day practically at the mercy of his keener and more intelligent fellows. And of all people, Robert, your people need trained intelligence to cope with
this problem of farming here. Without intelligence and training and
some capital it is the wildest nonsense to think you can lead your people out of slavery. Look round you ... And you have a smatter- ing; therefore are ready to pit yourself against the organized planta- tion system without capital or experience. Robert, you may succeed;
you may find your landlord honest and the way clear; but my advice to you is—finish your education, develop your talents, and then come to your life work a full-fledged man and not a half-ignorant boy.44)
When philanthropists vist the school and discuss its problems Miss
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Smith strongly disapproves of their ideas:
"What a magnificent intelligent office
," remarked Mr. Bocombe,
"for furnishing servants to the nation . I saw splendid material for cooks and maids."
"And plough -boys ," added Cresswell.
"And singers
," said Mary Taylor.
"Well
, now that's just my idea," said Mrs. Grey "that these schools should furnish trained servants and laborers for the South. Isn't that your idea, Miss Smith?"
"Not exactly
," that lady replied, "or at least I shouldn't put it just that way. My idea is that this school should furnish men and women who can work and earn an honest living, train up families aright, and perform their duties as fathers, mothers, and citizens."
"Don't let the blacks meddle in politics
," said Dr. Boldish.
"I want to make these children full -fledged men and women , strong, self-reliant, honest, without any `ifs' and 'ands' to their develop- ment," insisted Miss Smith. ")
In a sense this novel is a fictional version of the controversy between DuBois and Washington. In the scene of the political affair and the black sharecropper's cooporative settlement. DuBois seems to attack Washington's ideas as he presented then in the "Address of Atlanta."
VII
There are many demerits and merits in this novel. First of all, as Robert A. Bone pointed out, "the scene shifts from the deep South
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to Washington, D.C. Here the protagonists acquire a sudden sophisti- cation, rising rapidly if unconvincingly to the heights of political power. "46) In short, the transformation of Bles and Zora is sudden and drastic, undermining the novel's probability.
The second problem is related to the development of the polt. As this story is fairly long, its manner of development becomes very important in attracting readers. DuBois, however, inserted sub-stories into the main stream—"Mr. Taylor Calls." "The Annunciation" and
"A Parting of Way" —blurring the focus of the development of the central story. The conclusion, which resolves the confiict between Bles and Zora, is especially unclear, when Bles proposes to Zora, say- ing," ... forgive me! Will you marry me?," she replies unhesitantly,
"No
, Bles. "47) But when Mrs. Cresswell; who knows Bles' situation, permits him to marry Emma soon after, Zora becomes worried and confused: "she held her burning head—was not everything plain? Was
not everything clear? This was Sacrifice! This was the Atonement for the unforgiven sin ... a cold and mighty God, who had given it to Bles. It was well; God willed. But could she live? Must she live?
Did God ask that, too?"48 In the last scene Zora says, "Will you—
marry me. Bles?49 DuBois used the sudden reverse to make the novel melodramatic.
The third problem is the matter of the style. Stering Brown said that "the characters are stiff and talk stiltedly. Bles, thou almost
persuadest me to be a fool.'"") Robert A. Bone added more severely that "It is as if the novelist's new meanings cannot be contained by the old idiom; they strain against it, but it well not yield. The result of this bizarre union is something of a literary monstrosity. "51)
Regarding merits of DuBois in the tradition of black literature, there
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are two points to be made. The first is that he used a real black hero and heroine. Zora is described as "black and lithe, and tall, and wiilowy, 52} and Bles, "his brown face and close curled hair. "53 DuBois takes black literature a step forward compared with previous novelists who used mulatto heroes and heroines.
The second merit is the pride in blackness. Zora said that "We black folks is got the spirit. We'se lighter and cuninger; we fly right through them; we go and come again just as we wants to. Black folks is wonderful. "54) Also, Bles is not daunted by Mr. Cresswell, a powerful man in Tooms county:
So they passed each other by, Mr. Cresswell to town, Bles to the swamp, apparently ignorant of each other's very existence. Yet, as
the space widened between them, each felt a more vindictive anger for the other. How dares the black puppy to ignore a Cresswell on
the highway? If this went on, the day would surely come when Negroes felt no respect or fear whatever for whites? And then—my God! Mr. Cresswell struck his mare a vicious blow and dashed
toward town."")
This may reflect DuBois' attitude toward white people, however,.
Bles was uncharacterstically proud for that time and the place.
As Bles receives an education at Miss Smith's school, he became
"conscious of the narrowness and straightness of his black world
, and red anger flashed in him ever and again as he felt his bounds."") In the same way, when Zora was on the way to the Alabama swamp after Mrs. Vanderpool's training, she felt that "A gang of colored section hands got on, dirty and loud. They sprawled about and
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smoked, drank, and bought candy and cheap gewgaws. "57) Both Zora and Bles reveal a self-contradiction. They have pride in their black- ness, however, they have came to hold middle class value. This ex- presses another side of DuBois' mind. To be sure, he contributed the Harlem Renaissance, creating the spiritual basis for it with his book, The Soul of Black Folk. Through his efforts with the Niagara Move- ment, and later as a staff member of the N. A. A. C. P. , he propelled the movement to obtain the rights for manhood of blacks. He also gave young black writers and poets opportunities to publish their work.58>
In the field of black fiction he gave black people pride in blackness, but it was not major factor in his novel.
During the Harlem Renaissance, as a leader, he had the respect and admiration of his people; however, he could not tolerate the vices or the morally degrading situations of certain blacks. His prejudices on this point shows why he could not be a leader in the Harlem Renaiss- ance. Sterling Brown states both the novel's failure and success: "this radical lead is not followed up; the novel is too taken up with a priggish hero and an unbelievable heroine, and social reality is subor- dinated to symbolism. It is a significant book, however, and if DuBois answered Dixon's melodrama in kind, it was at least melodrama plead- ing for humanity and blasting in justice. "59)
NOTES
25) Ibid.. p. 11.
26) Bobert A. Bone. The Negro Novel in America. p. 43 and Hugh M. Gloster, Negro Voice in American Fiction. p. 73.
27) The Quest of the Silver Fleece. op. cit. , p. 184.
28) Ibid.. p. 160.
29) Ibid.. pp. 183-184.
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