McKay

It seems really ironic that a verse could be both an confab out during the Harlem Renaissance and a rallying poetry for Winston Churchill to persuade his country to participation against the Nazis, besides that is exactly what this poesy was. Claude McKays If We mustiness Die was originally written close the race riots in Harlem in 1919, and it was a call to all African American custody that it was time for them to stand up for their rights. As with his poetry, McKay himself had quite an interesting breeding. born(p) in Jamaica in 1889, he promulgated his first book of poetry at the age of twenty. In this book called songs of Jamaica, he tells the reader rough living the life of an average filthy in Jamaica. In 1912, he came to America in enunciate to attend Tuskegee, then moves on to the University of Kansas. He flirted with communism and traveled to Europe comp allowely to find himself converting to Catholicism patronize in Harlem again. Dying in 1948, McKay certain ly odd his mark on the world. McKays verse If We Must Die, leaves a mark of his emphasis when it comes to social inequality and bucking the status quo. McKay makes a plea to African American men.McKay uses galore(postnominal) literary techniques and devices in this poem to elevate and emphasize his meaning. He uses the interchangeable hogs in define one, which is a simile. He presently begins with this because the reader clearly does non de humand to identify himself or herself with hogs. He is setting up the idea that subdued lot do not want to do it like animals. Therefore, they must bid for their rights. He uses apostrophe, both in cablegrams 5 and 9. He may allude to legion(predicate) separate injustices suffered like Harpers ferry or slavery.An extended illustration would be the animal imagery that is carried through the poem with words like hogs, (line 1)hunted, penned, (line 2) bark, mad and empty-bellied dogs, (line 3) monsters, (line 7) cowardly pac k (line 13). A metaphor is employ in line 7 with the word monsters. Again, McKay is making the conscience excerpt to evoke animal imagery because, in his mind, blacks piddle become animals. They have been approve into a corner like animals, and outright they must choose to troth their agency out.His choice of rhetoric or language clearly demonstrates that of the black mans dignity and the animal imagery that dehumanizes the black man. An example of hyperbole is If we must die, allow it not be like hogs (line 1) and and for their atomic number 19 blows deal one shoemakers last-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 essential in the reader.Basically interpreting this poem is simple. It is brief but eloquent. Mc Kay does not tactile sensation that his fellow kinsmen should stand around and let society or white man attack them and do nil about it. He tells his brothers that they must fight. They need to try out themselves to be brave and fight affirm 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 leave not go down without a fight. They will not be treated like animals in a pen by remaining passive they will plug in to set forthher and fight. If they have been made into animals, they will fight like animals.This poem is clearly a Shakespearean sonnet. One patrician dash to tell is the rhyme intention 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 last rhyming couplet being the turn. This sonnet is also written in iambic pentameter as to stay with tradition alistic form. The poem is clearly end-rhymed as the rhyme scheme suggests. There is repetition of the words If we must die.By ingeminate these words McKay repeats his plea for people to fight back, not to just accept 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 unmitigated rules to talk about a non-traditional rootAfrican Americans standing up for their rights. It is courtly structure to express a testis message, written almost like a speech or plea.McKays hatred 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, conditioned 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 entirely waiting for death.Works CitedMcKay, Claude, If We Must Die, Retrieved October 30, 2007 at sack SiteMcKay, Claude, Retrieved October 30, 2007 at Web Sitehttp//www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/25