Dark Water by Du Bois - Microcosm of Tragedy and Comedy

These are the things of which men think, who live: of their own selves and the dwelling place of their fathers; of their neighbors; of work and service; of rule and reason and women and children; of Beauty and Death and War.

To this thinking I have only to add a point of view: I have been in the world, but not of it. I have seen the human drama from a veiled corner, where all the outer tragedy and comedy have reproduced themselves in microcosm within. From this inner torment of souls the human scene without has interpreted itself to me in unusual and even illuminating ways.

For this reason, and this alone, I venture to write again on themes on which great souls have already said greater words, in the hope that I may strike here and there a half-tone, newer even if slighter, up from the heart of my problem and the problems of my people.

Dark Water

Penned one hundred years ago, these reflections from W.E.B. Du Bois ring equally true in the present, perhaps striking a chord in the process of resounding. Included as a Postscript in the first of his three autobiographies titled Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil, Du Bois documents his observations of the human condition, probing the roots of suffering in society.

Among the text's many focal points is race. Du Bois was acutely aware of his mixed race ancestry during a period of tense race relations in the United States. Descended from African, Dutch, English, and French relatives, he was nonetheless black in the eyes of his contemporaries and bore the brunt of racism from a young age.

We here investigate a select few key excerpts from Darkwater in honor of the literary legacy of Du Bois, who was both a prolific writer and civil rights activist, among filling various other roles. While undoubtedly leaving a lasting impact in the realm of literature, his reflections were also generally well-received at the time as well, illuminating issues of racial discrimination in America.

Tantalizing Contradiction

And so the contemplative path of Du Bois begins. We start by offering Du Bois the floor, standing alongside him in his discussion of the tantalizing contradiction of the human condition.

Here, then, is beauty and ugliness, a wide vision of world-sacrifice, a fierce gleam of world-hate. Which is life and what is death and how shall we face so tantalizing a contradiction? Any explanation must necessarily be subtle and involved. No pert and easy word of encouragement, no merely dark despair, can lay hold of the roots of these things. And first and before all, we cannot forget that this world is beautiful. Grant all its ugliness and sin—the petty, horrible snarl of its putrid threads, which few have seen more near or more often than I—notwithstanding all this, the beauty of this world is not to be denied.

Casting my eyes about I dare not let them rest on the beauty of Love and Friend, for even if my tongue were cunning enough to sing this, the revelation of reality here is too sacred and the fancy too untrue. Of one world-beauty alone may we at once be brutally frank and that is the glory of physical nature; this, though the last of beauties, is divine!

And so, too, there are depths of human degradation which it is not fair for us to probe. With all their horrible prevalence, we cannot call them natural. But may we not compare the least of the world's beauty with the least of its ugliness—not murder, starvation, and rapine, with love and friendship and creation—but the glory of sea and sky and city, with the little hatefulnesses and thoughtfulnesses of race prejudice, that out of such juxtaposition we may, perhaps, deduce some rule of beauty and life—or death?
Excerpted from the section "Of Beauty and Death," we as readers of Du Bois may begin to envision the reality he faced, which in many ways mirrors our own.


Through these passages, we encounter the paradox, the tantalizing contradiction, with which Du Bois found himself constantly confronted. His life was plagued by the racism of his era, from which he and others suffered tremendously. The "horrible snarl of its putrid threads" bound him in their stinking web, and yet Du Bois never became a cynic.

In fact, it might be said that Du Bois was an optimist at heart. Despite the struggles he faced, growing up fatherless and losing his mother at 16 years old, he earned his way into Harvard, where he eventually completed a Ph.D. in history, the university's first black doctorate.

Perhaps his success may be attributed to his attitude toward life. Focusing on the positive at every turn, Du Bois at the same time shone light on society's ills, the dark corners full of cobwebs and corpses, never ignoring them. He speaks of human degradation, horrific and unnatural, without ever losing faith in life itself.


Du Bois further expands on this vision in vivid detail, also included in the visionary section "Of Birth and Death," painting an entire landscape filled with both literal significance and symbolic extrapolation, all in service of depicting the microcosm of tragedy and comedy that characterized his experience.

God molded his world largely and mightily off this marvelous coast and meant that in the tired days of life men should come and worship here and renew their spirit. This I have done and turning I go to work again. As we go, ever the mountains of Mount Desert rise and greet us on our going—somber, rock-ribbed and silent, looking unmoved on the moving world, yet conscious of their everlasting strength.

About us beats the sea—the sail-flecked, restless sea, humming its tune about our flying keel, unmindful of the voices of men. The land sinks to meadows, black pine forests, with here and there a blue and wistful mountain. Then there are islands—bold rocks above the sea, curled meadows; through and about them roll ships, weather-beaten and patched of sail, strong-hulled and smoking, light gray and shining. All the colors of the sea lie about us—gray and yellowing greens and doubtful blues, blacks not quite black, tinted silvers and golds and dreaming whites.



Long tongues of dark and golden land lick far out into the tossing waters, and the white gulls sail and scream above them. It is a mighty coast—ground out and pounded, scarred, crushed, and carven in massive, frightful lineaments. Everywhere stand the pines—the little dark and steadfast pines that smile not, neither weep, but wait and wait. Near us lie isles of flesh and blood, white cottages, tiled and meadowed. Afar lie shadow-lands, high mist-hidden hills, mountains boldly limned, yet shading to the sky, faint and unreal.

We skirt the pine-clad shores, chary of men, and know how bitterly winter kisses these lonely shores to fill yon row of beaked ice houses that creep up the hills. We are sailing due westward and the sun, yet two hours high, is blazoning a fiery glory on the sea that spreads and gleams like some broad, jeweled trail, to where the blue and distant shadow-land lifts its carven front aloft, leaving, as it gropes, shades of shadows beyond.
With each reference to aspects of the natural world - its sweeping meadows and rugged mountains - we are offered a glimpse into the microcosmic terrain of the mind. Although Du Bois doesn't say so directly, perhaps these features stand theatrically for experiences he encountered on his contemplative path.

Microcosm of Tragedy and Comedy

To conclude our reflections here, we return to a passage from the Postscript, included at the outset. "To this thinking I have only to add a point of view: I have been in the world, but not of it. I have seen the human drama from a veiled corner, where all the outer tragedy and comedy have reproduced themselves in microcosm within. From this inner torment of souls the human scene without has interpreted itself to me in unusual and even illuminating ways." In this microcosm of tragedy and comedy we find represented the macrocosm of existence.

Racism is a undeniable felt reality. To turn one's back to the world, overlooking its weather-beaten, wind-torn, ship-wrecked elements, tossed about at sea, is to indulge in ignorance - a misguided ignoring of actuality, an ignoring of the churning sea in foolish fantasy of smooth sailing. For Du Bois, facing racism was to be in the world but not of the world, navigating the microcosm of tragedy and comedy like a ship at sail at sea.

For Du Bois, the microcosm of tragedy and comedy enacts itself in nature and in humanity's relationships, collectively forming a macrocosm encompassing all existence. Each of these relations, no matter how cloaked in shadows, was for Du Bois a valuable lesson and teacher. By confronting these shadows, we stand to overcome their grip, freeing both ourselves and our spiritual brothers and sisters from bondage, sailing toward the sun so that we may, perhaps, reach the further shore together.


To be continued...