McKay

It seems really ironic that a numbers could be both an outcry during the Harlem Renaissance and a rallying song for Winston Churchill to channel his country to fight against the Nazis, however that is exactly what this poem was. Claude McKays If We Must Die was originally written about the race riots in Harlem in 1919, and it was a call to all African American men that it was time for them to stand up for their rights. As with his poetry, McKay himself had quite an interesting life.Born in Jamaica in 1889, he published his first book of poetry at the age of twenty. In this book called songs of Jamaica, he tells the reader about living the life of an average moody in Jamaica. In 1912, he came to America in order to attend Tuskegee, then moves on to the University of Kansas. He flirted with communism and traveled to Europe only to engender himself converting to Catholicism back in Harlem again. Dying in 1948, McKay certainly left his mark on the world. McKays poem If We Must Die, leaves a mark of his furiousness when it comes to social inequality and bucking the status quo. McKay makes a plea to African American men.McKay uses many literary techniques and devices in this poem to enhance and emphasize his meaning. He uses homogeneous hogs in line one, which is a simile. He immediately begins with this because the reader clearly does not want to identify himself or herself with hogs. He is setting up the intellect that black people do not want to live like animals. Therefore, they must fight for their rights. He uses apostrophe, both in lines 5 and 9. He whitethorn allude to many other injustices suffered like Harpers Ferry or slavery.An extended metaphor would be the animal imagery that is carried through the poem with words like hogs, (line 1)hunted, drop a linened, (line 2) bark, mad and hungry dogs, (line 3) monsters, (line 7) cowardly pack (line 13). A metaphor is used in line 7 with the word monsters. Again, McKay is making the scruples choice to evoke animal imagery because, in his mind, blacks agree become animals. They have been backed into a corner like animals, and now they must film to fight their way out.His choice of rhetoric or diction clearly demonstrates that of the black mans dignity and the animal imagery that dehumanizes the black man. An font of hyperbole is If we must die, let it not be like hogs (line 1) and and for their thousand blows deal one death-blow (line 11). In line 3, onomatopoeia is used with the word bark. A rhetorical question is used in line 12 with What though before us lies the open grave? This reminds the reader that death waits for all of us, so what have they really got to lose? Many of these techniques are used to create a sense of urgency in the reader.Basically interpreting this poem is simple. It is brief but eloquent. McKay does not feel that his fellow kinsmen should stand around and let society or white man attack them and do nothing about it. He tells his brothers that they must fight. They need to show themselves to be brave and fight back against injustice and oppression. They must fight back against those who persecute them. McKay clearly admits that they may be outnumbered, with their backs pressed to the wall, but they will not go down without a fight. They will not be treated like animals in a pen by remaining passive they will join together and fight. If they have been made into animals, they will fight like animals.This poem is clearly a Shakespearian sonnet. One easy way to tell is the rhyme scheme of ababcdcdefefgg. Also the reader knows because the poem consists of 14 lines and is made up of three quatrains and a couplet, with the delay rhyming couplet macrocosm the turn. This sonnet is also written in iambic pentameter as to stay with traditional form. The poem is clearly end-rhymed as the rhyme scheme suggests. There is repetition of the words If we must die.By repeating these words McKay repeats his plea for people to fight back, not to jus t agree the way things are. African Americans deserve equal rights and they should get them or at least go out trying. This poem is a call to African American men to fight for their rights. He uses a quite traditional poetic form with very strict rules to talk about a non-traditional topicAfrican Americans standing up for their rights. It is formal structure to express a formal message, written almost like a speech or plea.McKays plague for the passive nature of black men is shown in this poem. He is calling for black men to stand up and fight against the injustices that have been done to them. He says that if they have to die, they should at least die fighting, knowing that they were fighting for their cause. Society has, in many ways, made them into animals. Instead of sitting passively by and being treated like animals, they should fight like animals. They have nothing to lose because they have no rights and in many ways are simply delay for death.Works CitedMcKay, Claude, If We Must Die, Retrieved October 30, 2007 at Web SiteMcKay, Claude, Retrieved October 30, 2007 at Web Sitehttp//www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/25