The Blue Veins
The narrator explains of the members of the Society, “if most of their members were light-colored, it was because such persons, as a rule, had had better opportunities to qualify themselves for membership.” The image of very light-skinned African Americans whose blue veins could be glimpsed through their pale skin is a crucial one in the text, for it is associated with character, culture, power, and influence. There is an implicit understanding among these people that darker-skinned black people are inferior and that they, the Talented Tenth, must work to uplift the race.
Liza Jane
By contrast to the Blue Veins, Liza Jane is "very black,—so black that her toothless gums, revealed when she opened her mouth to speak, were not red, but blue." She is automatically considered less educated, less cultured, and less civilized. Additionally, the description of her attire and her short height and wrinkled face present a contrast with Mrs. Dixon, the epitome of black (or, mulatto) womanhood. Liza Jane as “a bit of the old plantation life” is everything Mr. Ryder and his compatriots have been trying to put behind them.
