An Analysis Of Audre Lorde's Poetry

Double-Consciousness in Audre Lorde’s “Coal” There is a double-consciousness, according to W.E Burghardt Du Bois, in which we view ourselves through a veil. Underneath of this veil is the true self. The person that we are in our purest state. The veil itself, however, is how society sees us and our realization of that projection. Looking in a mirror, both layers can be seen. However, the true self is still covered, muddled, unclear beneath the sheer outer shell of expectation. In her poem “Coal”, Audre Lorde

Utilizing the works of African American Theorists Audre Lorde and Sojourner Truth as evidence, the following essay warrants how employing an intersectional lens within a narrative or poem combats the virtues of white feminism, a non-inclusive, counterfeit version of feminism, and encourages audiences to reflect on how the multiple components of one’s identity coincide and directly affect one’s daily existence– both positively and or negatively. This essay concentrates exclusively on how women of

sexuality that was detached from the motherhood and marriage obligations. Conversely, other lesbian authors such as Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich utilized writing, speeches, and poetry in linking women’s oppression and heterosexuality. These rhetoricians asserted that heterosexuality is an unavoidable institution that is aimed at perpetuating men’s power across race and class. In Lorde’s (1984) Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches and Rich’s (1980) On Lies,