Snow and the Veil: A Critical Study of the Symbolism of Snow in Richard Wright's Haiku

Richard Wright was one of the most influential African American writers to achieve significant recognition in the history of African American literature. Among the less-explored literary works of Wright, Haiku: The Last Poetry of Richard Wright, which comprises almost 800 haiku written by him, bears testimony to how deeply Wright was affected by the unpleasant experiences he underwent as a person of African ancestry. This research article aims to decipher Wright’s frequent use of snow imagery which appears to be a manifestation of his perception of racism and the way he adroitly used snow to symbolise the color line, and the veil, two ideas propounded by respectively by Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. Du Bois, along with the pain of isolation, alienation and loneliness.