Of the Passing of the First-Born
E628887
"Of the Passing of the First-Born" is a poignant essay by W. E. B. Du Bois reflecting on the death of his infant son and the broader tragedy of Black life under racism in America.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Of the Passing of the First-Born canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T6929281 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Of the Passing of the First-Born Context triple: [The Souls of Black Folk, hasPart, Of the Passing of the First-Born]
-
A.
Fatelessness
Fatelessness is a semi-autobiographical novel by Nobel laureate Imre Kertész that portrays a Hungarian Jewish boy’s harrowing experiences in Nazi concentration camps and his struggle to comprehend them afterward.
-
B.
Infants of the Spring
Infants of the Spring is a satirical novel by Harlem Renaissance writer Wallace Thurman that critiques the artistic and social life of 1920s Harlem.
-
C.
A Prayer for the Dying
A Prayer for the Dying is a thriller novel by Jack Higgins that follows an IRA hitman seeking redemption while being hunted in London.
-
D.
A Time to Be Born
A Time to Be Born is a satirical 1942 novel by American writer Dawn Powell that skewers New York high society, politics, and the publishing world on the eve of World War II.
-
E.
The Lament
"The Lament" is a poem by Scottish poet Robert Burns, known for its expressive portrayal of sorrow and emotional turmoil.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Of the Passing of the First-Born Target entity description: "Of the Passing of the First-Born" is a poignant essay by W. E. B. Du Bois reflecting on the death of his infant son and the broader tragedy of Black life under racism in America.
-
A.
Fatelessness
Fatelessness is a semi-autobiographical novel by Nobel laureate Imre Kertész that portrays a Hungarian Jewish boy’s harrowing experiences in Nazi concentration camps and his struggle to comprehend them afterward.
-
B.
Infants of the Spring
Infants of the Spring is a satirical novel by Harlem Renaissance writer Wallace Thurman that critiques the artistic and social life of 1920s Harlem.
-
C.
A Prayer for the Dying
A Prayer for the Dying is a thriller novel by Jack Higgins that follows an IRA hitman seeking redemption while being hunted in London.
-
D.
A Time to Be Born
A Time to Be Born is a satirical 1942 novel by American writer Dawn Powell that skewers New York high society, politics, and the publishing world on the eve of World War II.
-
E.
The Lament
"The Lament" is a poem by Scottish poet Robert Burns, known for its expressive portrayal of sorrow and emotional turmoil.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (42)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
essay
ⓘ
literary work ⓘ |
| author | W. E. B. Du Bois ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| depicts | life of Black Americans in the post-Reconstruction era ⓘ |
| discusses | the idea that death may spare Black children from racial suffering ⓘ |
| firstPublishedIn | The Souls of Black Folk ⓘ |
| form | prose ⓘ |
| genre |
autobiographical essay
ⓘ
personal essay ⓘ |
| hasCriticalReception | widely regarded as one of the most moving sections of The Souls of Black Folk ⓘ |
| hasHistoricalContext |
Jim Crow era in the United States
ⓘ
linked to:
Jim Crow laws
|
| hasSubject | Du Bois’s first-born child ⓘ |
| hasTone |
meditative
ⓘ
poignant ⓘ tragic ⓘ |
| influencedBy | Du Bois’s own family experience ⓘ |
| intendedAudience |
general reading public
ⓘ
readers concerned with race relations in America ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| literaryMovement |
African American literature
ⓘ
Harlem Renaissance precursor ⓘ |
| mainSubject |
African American life
ⓘ
death of W. E. B. Du Bois’s infant son ⓘ grief ⓘ hope and despair ⓘ parental loss ⓘ racism in the United States ⓘ the color line ⓘ |
| narrativePerspective | first-person ⓘ |
| notableFor |
intimate portrayal of Du Bois’s personal grief
ⓘ
linking private sorrow to systemic racism ⓘ |
| partOf | The Souls of Black Folk ⓘ |
| positionInWork | chapter ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1903 ⓘ |
| relatedWork | The Souls of Black Folk ⓘ |
| setInPeriod | late 19th century United States ⓘ |
| theme |
social injustice
ⓘ
spiritual consolation ⓘ the burden of the color line on Black families ⓘ the meaning of death under oppression ⓘ |
| workChronologyWithinTheSoulsOfBlackFolk | later chapter ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Of the Passing of the First-Born Description of subject: "Of the Passing of the First-Born" is a poignant essay by W. E. B. Du Bois reflecting on the death of his infant son and the broader tragedy of Black life under racism in America.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.