'Double Consciousness' in The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man
             While Johnson was a highly celebrated and versatile literary figure, his most well known work is The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man. Even though this title suggests that this work was his story, it was actually a novel, the first African-American one to mask itself as an autobiography. In this novel, the illegitimate son of a southern white man and his mulatto mistress struggles to find his identity and place in the world. Being light-skinned, he does not discover his black blood until he is segregated from the white students in his school. As he ages, he leaves the south to discover his identity.
             W.E.B. DuBois argues that "a Negro can never maintain only one identity," a statement that dictates the life of the narrator in The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man. Throughout the novel, the narrator jumps from one identity to the other, prompted mostly by the "second-sight" bequeathed to him by DuBois - his ability to see himself through the eyes of others. While the narrator is still in school he has the opportunity of seeing himself through "Red's" eyes - both as a white child and, thanks to the unintentionally harsh words of his teacher - as a black child. Red's perception of him does not seem to change neither does "Shiny's" - yet the other schoolchildren reject his "new" identity, at least temporarily.
             As he grows older the narrator is confronted with many more occurrences of this nature, none of which give him clues as to his "true" identity, but all of which allow him to see himself through others' eyes. One such situation arises, ironically, on a train, while he is shuttling between identities. All of the other men in the car are white and unaware of the presence of the "drop of Negro blood" in his veins, allowing him to participate in a conversation directly related to his struggle for an identity, without the other men being aware of...