Double consciousness in bell hooks' Bone black

Abstract

This  article  investigates  the  shifts  in  the  concept  of  double  consciousness  as  depicted  in  bell  hooks’ Bone  black  (1996).  According  to  du  bois,  the  idea  of  ‘double consciousness’ refers to being both black and American. In du boisian understanding, double consciousness refers to a condition of being black and American in which ‘one ever feels his two-ness – an American, a Negro; two souls,  two  thoughts,  two  unreconciled  strivings’  (du  bois  1989,  5).  Bell  hooks  agrees  with  this  view  but  she  also  revises  the  concept  in  order  to  take  on  board the fact that black women have other experiences in addition to double consciousness in America (hooks 1996).