Examining the Power Relations Represented in Soul on Ice

Abstract

This paper attempts to reveal intricately interwoven power relations represented in Eldridge Cleaver’s memoir, Soul on Ice, which is evaluated as a seminal work in African-American literature. Cleaver analyzes the exertion of power in relation with the major events in his society and interprets the complex relations of power on the basis of racism and sexism. He first portrays social, physical, and psychological limitations that he experienced as a black man living in white America, then trying to transferring them to women with black masculinity as a means to regain his lost authority. This process is symbolic and can be parallel to constructing and deconstructing invisible mental limitations, which becomes cyclic in our society. In this regard, his narrative offers an insightful lens to look at the society from the perspective of a black man with a crippled soul living in the 1960s of America and also portrays the process of reconstruction of his identity.