A fuller understanding of the complexity of the racial evolution of the 1960s is better realized by examining the first-hand accounts of those individuals directly affected by the racial upheaval of the time period. Eldridge Cleaver's autobiographical letters in Soul on Ice provide an insightful perspective of a black prison inmate trapped in a world ruled by white bigotry during the 1960s.

In this essay, I will examine Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice in three parts:

2. Demonstrate how he rhetorically develops his themes;

3. Draw conclusions about the questions his work poses.

While Cleaver's assorted letters address a variety of topics, several general themes arise from the totality of his work. I will briefly discuss these general themes, and in the next section, demonstrate how Cleaver develops these themes rhetorically.

Cleaver's letters serve as a personal healing mechanism that allow him to can cope with the harsh realities that define his existence. He confronts head-on the identity crisis that faces black and white America as their two worlds clash during the turbulent 1960s. And, after examining the bitterness of his anger

Finally, Cleaver's theme of hope for racial progress, while possibly seeming out of place in relation to the overall bitter tone Cleaver provides throughout his work, manifests itself in Cleaver's observations of America's youth.

This desire, which ironically was created because of restrictions imposed by white men, serves to stir racial conflict because white men often have an almost obsessive fear that black men will rape white women. This sexual tension leads to racial stereotypes of "black bestiality" and cause serious racial conflict.

The rhetorical device of blunt and vivid imagery effectively developed Cleaver's theme of a racial identity crisis in America resting largely on the underlying, but often unexamined, sexual tension permeating through white and black America during the 1960's. Cleaver brought to the forefront blunt and sometimes unpleasant concepts and ideas so as to shock and wake up the American psyche so as to call attention to the disturbing consequences of racism.

It's my argument that, coupled with other simultaneous civil rights efforts of the time, the honest dialogue brought forth by Eldridge Cleaver played an important role in providing Americans with a fuller understanding of the dynamic and complex nature of the civil rights struggle of the 1960's. Critics of Cleaver's work can argue that his pointed and uncomfortable material only served to unnecessarily outrage mainstream Americans and thus stifle otherwise productive and cordial civil rights efforts. These criticisms, however, fail to take into account the truly unique and dynamic social turmoil of 1960's America. True, if Cleaver's work were the only literary examination of racial tension in an otherwise placid time period, his work probably wouldn't gain much traction. In that hypothetical situation, Cleaver's work wouldn't aid the civil rights discussion as much because it would come across as unnecessarily extreme.

hope for racial equality. Through the autobiographical narrative, Cleaver effectively gains the reader's understanding and sympathy of anger and bitterness. Then, as soon as the reader has developed sympathy towards Cleaver's worldviews, Cleaver yanks the reader back, and shows that despite the dire circumstances, there remains a need for hope. The journey along this emotional spectrum most certainly could not have been achieved if Cleaver had presented his story through a stale, 3rd person and impersonal account of racism in America. Instead, the autobiographical narrative sets the hook into the reader's own psyche, and then carries the reader along the journey that is Eldridge Cleaver's own self-discovery.

While Cleaver employs an array of rhetorical devices to develop his themes, for the sake of time in this essay, I will examine two examples in particular that help define Cleaver's style. First, Cleaver uses an autobiographical and deeply personal narrative of his own life to provide a human face to the effects of the racial caste system on the psyc

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Approximate Word count = 2021
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)