“He beat back the nausea, and, seizing a tray from dead hands, hurried into the street and ate ravenously, hiding to keep out the sights. ‘Yesterday, they would not have served me,’ he whispered, as he forces the food down.”
At first glance, DuBois’s The Comet appears to be a work of science fiction because of the comet, which has come down to incarcerate New York, but in actuality the work of science is human genetics. DuBois puts emphasis on the perceived inhumanity of black men (or women) at the time. This narrative takes place in a time when racial differences and prejudices were highly rampant. The quote above and below are great examples of this:
“Yes–I was not–human, yesterday,’ he said. She looked at him. ‘And your people were not my people,’ she said”
The reason I say that human genetics is the real work of science in this story is because, at one time, the time of this story, people believed that the color of your skin dictated your humanity, but science proved that despite what the preconceived notions at the time thought, no matter what color your skin, we shared the same human genetics. DuBois does this throughout the story by showing without the opinion of the outside world, the messenger and the women are the same despite their racial differences. It is a shame it took the end of the world (in their eyes) and a comet for us (or them) to see it.
It is also very interesting in what DuBois does when the outside world’s preconceived notions enter back into the equation at the end of the story. It seems as if he is saying that even with the knowledge that we are all human despite skin color that the prejudices and institutional culture norms of the day will suppress this knowledge. In the end, they were still just “a white girl and a nigger.” This sounds grim but it does give us an answer on how to defeat these prejudices; destroy and change the culture norms. Something he is trying to do with the text, The Comet.
