Essay on If We Must Die by Claude McKay

“I love this cultured hell that tests my youth” (McKay 4). In line four he is saying despite all this hell that he is being put through, he love still loves his country. To help further explain his love in his love-hate relationship with America, he uses similes. Similes are a way to compare two things that are nothing alike, by using the words “like” or “as”. In line five, McKay uses a simile by saying “Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,/ Giving me strength erect against her hate.” (McKay 5-6). This is a way to show and tell the readers that America’s overall strength flows like tides the tides of an ocean constantly giving him the strength to stand up against all the hate he receives from everyone around him. “Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.” (McKay 7) This is McKay way of saying even though he feels he has the strength to stand up against everyone, he is outnumbered and can easily be swept to the sidelines, but no matter what he will still “stand within her walls with not a shred/ Of terror..” (McKay

During the Harlem Renaissance, many African Americans struggled through a shifting period in time from slavery to equality. Some African Americans expressed their feelings at that time through poetry such as “Yet Do I Marvel” written by Countee Cullen and “If We Must Die” by Claude McKay. In “Yet Do I Marvel” Cullen writes about how the struggles he is facing relate to God and how he is being punished. McKay’s poem is slightly different; he emphasizes the idea of dying an honorable death for his freedom. These two poems are classic examples of how some African Americans felt during the Harlem Renaissance.

This strategy is meant to appeal to the reader's emotions by bringing up the touchy subject of death and also the purpose of life. Thoreau believes, if we are living, we should seek reality and business, or the harsh and cold touch of death. Thoreau’s statement makes the reader evaluate their beliefs and purpose, “Be it life or death, we crave only reality. If we are dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel the cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business.” (Thoreau,66) Humans must seek the truth even if it means life or death. If a man wants reality, it might take some hardships and devastating moments. Thoreau uses parallelism when he repeats “let us” in grammatically similar ways; this emphasizes the importance of truth both in life and death and relates to Thoreau’s perspective of what makes a man truly free. If a man is free, he always seeks the truth even if it requires a great deal of devotion and

The poem America by Claude McKay is on its surface a poem combining what America should be and what this country stands for, with what it actually is, and the attitude it projects amongst the people. Mckay uses the form of poetry to express how he, as a Jamaican immigrant, feels about America. He characterizes the bittersweet relationship between striving for the American dream, and being denied that dream due to racism. While the America we are meant to see is a beautiful land of opportunity, McKay see’s as an ugly, flawed, system that crushes the hopes and dreams of the African-American people.

McKay emphasizes that his deep hatred for the “White City” is due to the oppression he receives from white-skinned people for being African American; however this hatred is hidden from the world as he is perceived as an isolated minority in this “White City”. The intensity of McKay’s hatred is displayed in the personification of the “dark Passion that fills [his] every mood”(6). The first letter in the diction “Passion” is capitalized, thus personifying it to be representation of the

A sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines that rhyme in a particular pattern. William Shakespeare’s sonnets were the only non-dramatic poetry that he wrote. Shakespeare used sonnets within some of his plays, but his sonnets are best known as a series of one hundred and fifty-four poems. The series of one hundred and fifty-four poems tell a story about a young aristocrat and a mysterious mistress. Many people have analyzed and contemplated about the significance of these “lovers”. After analysis of the content of both the “young man” sonnets and the “dark lady sonnets”, it is clear that the poet, Shakespeare, has a great love for the young man and only lusts after his mistress.

“He became aware of the beauty of the great European cathedrals, especially the Catholic ones in Spain.” He later realized that he believed in God in the early 1930s. In his poem “Outcast” he refers to religion. It is first brought up in the beginning of the poem “My spirit bondaged by the body, longs”. He is referring back to his heritage and his beliefs that he is further questioning. In the article “Home At Last”, it states how Claude McKay became involved with the communist party, but later began to find the religious outlooks of Christianity that were beneficial and inspirational.It is stated that McKay made the decision to turn his political views into art that later turned into Christianity. Later on in the poem, on lines 7-8, he states “While to its alien gods I bend my knee”. In the analysis this poem in the article “Thematic Trends in Claude McKay’s Selected Poems of the Harlem Era”, it is stated under the topic of religion “The persona having been taken away from the shores of Africa is made to embrace alien gods in a foreign land.” This states how he was stuck in the memory of his heritage and felt imprisoned in a foreign land. A novel that Claude McKay wrote close to the end of the Harlem Renaissance was discovered and showed the influence Communism had on his writing. The manuscript was called “Amiable With Big Teeth”. According to News York Times, the manuscript was “A novel of

(Conroy, Mary James, Claude McKay) His human pity was the foundation that made all this possible McKay also wrote on a variety of subjects, from his Jamaican homeland to romantic love, with a use of passionate language. If we must die-let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, while round us bark the mad hungry dogs (MacKay) 1-2 who wants to die losing a battle with no pride most of all without dignity but if we must go we may as well go down fighting and be honored with dignity afterwards instead of losing everything and be forgotten without a purpose give them something to talk about remember us by. They must die. No choice about it; no question about it The attackers harass in a humiliating way, almost celebrating their dominance over their victims. The poem uses quatrains iambic pentameter in majority of the poem. It seems to be conditional to begin each sentence in the octave There is an extended simile where African Americans are being compared to hogs He calls on them to fight back even though they have no chance of winning. The attackers harass in a humiliating way, almost celebrating their dominance over their victims. "Mocking" is making fun of someone, except there is no fun in mocking (MacKay) 4 The poem uses this simile to show how the brutality and un-human nature of the attacks on African Americans were. McKay shows how he doesn 't want to end up beaten and battered like a wild animal no one

On page 51-52, Drummond states “I understand what Bert’s going through. It’s the loneliest feeling in the world - to find yourself standing up when everybody else is sitting down. To have everybody look at you and say “ What’s the matter with him?” I know. I know what it feels like. Walking down an empty street, listening to the sound of your own footsteps.”The quote says that Drummond knows it is very hard and lonely to stand up for something you believe is right when everyone is against you. The author's lesson is that when you stand up alone even though it is hard you have to fight for what you believe is right even if others believe it is wrong. For example, when Cates stood up against the butler law the treated him like a murder and no one would stand with him.The author used Imagery when Drummond said “Walking down an empty street, listening to the sound of your own footsteps.” Which is describing details of the surrounding which makes the reader picture the scene in their mind. Before Drummond was making a joke about how they get so offended when someone calls there bible fake that they “ Call down the wrath of God, Brady, and state legislature on

McKay talks about how that living in a country that is just filled with racism is extremely hard, but he still loves America because she made him a stronger person. He says that “her hate” gave him strength and that he is willing to fight against her like “a rebel fronts a king in state.” He knows how mighty American is and loves her because of that, but time is being wasted. The longer America is ignorant and racist towards African Americans, the more time is waste because many African Americans can achieve amazing things for America.

Claude McKay was a Jamaican poet who brought hopefulness to the oppressed during the Harlem Renaissance in his poem, “If We Must Die”. McKay experienced the hardships that colored people were going through because of their race and nationality. He believed that the people should fight for what they believe in, even if it seems like a hopeless cause. McKay uses the concept of dying with dignity to persuade his fellow African-Americans that are being oppressed to fight for what they believe in.

As Ida B Wells said, “Our country 's national crime is lynching. It is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob.” Claude McKay in his sonnet The Lynching describes the gruesome reality of a lynching and how “it is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury…” but simply white men, women, and children who carried out this act of cruelty and celebrated it without remorse. McKay uses various sounds and rhythmic devices to reflect the intensity of the horrific images depicted. The sound devices combined with the symbolism, allusion, and dark imagery illustrate the violent crimes committed against the African Americans. This poem was published in 1922 after slavery had ended however hatred and violence toward African Americans continued. This sonnet is about a lynching and the attitude of the white population.

McKay pointedly discusses and examines the radian inequality experienced by some American citizens during the twenties. Throughout the poem, McKay teeters back and forth between his intense positive and negative feelings of both America and the American way of life during this period, for example, his unexplainable love for the country versus the people’s racism which he personally encounters like when he says “l will confess/I love this cultured hell that tests my youth”(America,3,4). This was a very exciting time for many Americans as the roaring twenties were coming into full swing and society was celebrating the decade of carefree decadence, but there was a seedy dark side to America as well. For example, blacks in the South, where McKay

This sonnet serves to invoke a strong sense of realism in love, arguing that as strong an intensity of emotion as may be held, may be held, without the need for delusions of grandeur, taking the view that trying to reconcile two essentially different and diverse things as equal is to do true justice to neither. The beloved in this case thus represents more the need for a character developed to challenge stereotype than an actual real-life woman,

The Sonnet 18 “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day “ is around the most admired and prominent of the 154 poems of William Shakespeare . Most researchers concur that the true recipient of the lyric, the mate of pleasant toward oneself, whom the artist is composing, is a man, however the sonnet is generally used to portray a lady. In the piece, the pleasant toward oneself contrasts his adoration with a June through August, and contends that his affection is superior to summer (Kennedy & Gioia). He additionally states that your beau will live everlastingly through the expressions of the lyric. Researchers have discovered parallels between this poem and sonnets Tristia and Amores of Ovid . A few interpretations have uncovered