The Major Themes of Mckays Poetry - Coursework Example

Claude McKay When people think of the Harlem Renaissance, they most often think such as Langston Hughes or James Baldwin, two writers who seem to define the genre of writing characterized by the ‘new’ voice of the black American. Up to this point, black writers were considered relatively rare and unworthy of scholarly attention. However, the Harlem Renaissance broke through this white barrier to force the world to hear the voices of the suppressed as they broadcast the unique style, rhythm and beauty of their own forms of expression. One author associated with this movement who is perhaps not so broadly recognized today is Claude McKay. Not originally born in the United States and having traveled the world before finally arriving in Harlem, McKay nevertheless managed to convey a sense of the desperation of the people living in this region, the sorrow felt at the loss of so much potential and the anger of a race oppressed by ignorant people desperate to maintain superiority by any means necessary short of actual effort. To understand the major themes of McKay’s poetry during this period of time, it is helpful to have some idea of his outlook through a brief biography before examining some of his more popular poems such as “If We Must Die,” “Harlem Shadows” and “The Harlem Dancer.” Biography Claude McKay was the youngest child born to a peasant family in Clarendon, Jamaica in 1889 (Winston, 2003). Although his father was only a peasant, he was able to amass enough property to gain the right to vote, which gave the family some small degree of prestige and enabled some of the children to be educated formally. Claude was educated by his older brother, five years his senior. As a young adult, he gained a position working as a police officer in Jamaica and continued his literary interest by writing poetry. Eventually, he came to the attention of Walter Jekyll, who helped him publish his first book of poems, entitled Songs of Jamaica in 1912. This same year, he published Constab Ballads based on his experiences as a policeman and he traveled to South Carolina to attend Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute. He reportedly had difficulty adapting to the highly ordered lifestyle of the students at the Institute as well as the high levels of racism, including segregated facilities, he found within the town and transferred to Kansas State University studying agronomy (Winston, 2003). By 1914, he had determined this was not the life for him and he traveled again, this time to Japan where he was able to marry Eulalie Lewars, who he had known back home in Jamaica. Reportedly not a faithful husband, McKay worked as a waiter, a newspaper editor and continued to publish his poetry before becoming a full-time journalist in London (Aldrich & Wotherspoon, 2001). Pursuing his interest in Communism, McKay traveled to Russia and France during the 1920s, but by the late 1920s, he was associating himself with the concepts of the Harlem Renaissance and drawing fire from other writers such as W.E.B. DuBois. He moved into Harlem in 1934 where he remained. He continued to write until his death in 1948 at the age of 59 as the result of a heart attack. Poetry Although he also wrote about other subjects such as romantic love and biographical experiences, the poetry of McKay is largely centered upon the political and social inequalities that affected his race everywhere he went, primarily as it was experienced in America. This can be seen in poems such as “If We Must Die,” “Harlem Shadows” and “The Harlem Dancer.” His themes are better illustrated through an examination of these poems. If We Must Die McKay’s poem “If We Must Die” is a sonnet written in response to a wave of race riots that took place in several American cities in 1919 (Brians, 1998). The poem is written as a direct address to the black men and women who were then being persecuted as McKay urges them to stand up and fight against their oppression rather than simply accepting their treatment as natural. He says, “If we must die, let it not be like hogs / Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot” (1-2). Rather than remaining constrained in the tight spaces of urban decay and rural desolation that they had been relegated to as a reluctant concession made by the white people who had no other options as to what to do with all these black people who were no longer slaves, McKay urges those of his race to force recognition of their humanity by fighting nobly. “O kinsmen we must meet the common foe! / Though far outnumbered let us show us brave / And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!” (9-11). Rather than submissively accepting the violence of the white man who will undoubtedly win due to sheer force of numbers and the ability to manipulate the laws to their side, McKay urges that it remains necessary for the black man to go down fighting as a means of retaining his self-respect and as the only way to ever pave the way for future generations to gain some degree of respect. Harlem Shadows The theme of oppression is carried through in McKay’s poem “Harlem Shadows” with a slightly different tone. Rather than being violently resistant to the realities of life, in this poem McKay adopts a sorrowful attitude as he illustrates the sad wanderings of the black girls of Harlem who have little option for supporting themselves other than through disgrace. Although the girls he hears in the Harlem night are “eager to heed desire’s insistent call” (4), this eagerness is not necessarily due to their own sense of desire. This idea becomes more evident in the second stanza as the “little gray feet know no rest” (8) despite the obvious cold of the night illustrated by the fact that they walk until the “last snow-flake / Has dropped from heaven upon the earth’s white breast” (9-10). This cold is made even more profound by his inclusion of the idea that these “dusky, half-clad girls … are trudging, thinly shod, from street to street” (11-12). They are endlessly wandering in insufficient clothing and footwear through freezing nights full of snow and ice, driven by a hunger deeper than their sense of honor or pride. Through his imagery, McKay is able to slowly lead the reader to the conclusion that these girls are prostitutes. They are endlessly seeking new clients and preying on the desire of men willing to pay for sex not because they themselves prefer this sort of work, but because it is the only way they can keep death at bay. This is the direct result of the poverty they are subjected to as members of the ‘fallen race’. The only work they can get is full of dishonor and disgrace, but it is either engage in this sort of work or perish of starvation, lack of shelter or warmth. The Harlem Dancer McKay adopts this same tone of sorrowful acceptance in his poem “The Harlem Dancer”, in which he tells the story of an exotic dancer performing in front of a rowdy group of young men and the prostitutes they’ve hired. In this poem, McKay provides highly sensual details regarding the scene before him. He talks about how the boys applauded the woman’s “perfect, half-clothed body” (2) and emphasizes her talent as he talks about her voice “like the sound of blended flutes” (3). Despite the presumably disorderly conduct of the crowd, he indicates the woman remains calm and collected, focused on her performance through lines such as “She sang and danced on gracefully and calm / The light gauze hanging loose about her form” (5-6). While he is capable of appreciating her beauty and skill, comparing her to a graceful palm, proud and strong in its environment, the boys are only able to focus on one element of her being. Describing them as “wine-flushed,” McKay makes this picture of a strong, beautiful and talented black woman ugly by mentioning how these boys were “tossing coins in praise / the wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls, / devoured her with their eager, passionate gaze” (10-12). Although she is the center of attention and is managing to provide an entertaining performance capable of instilling McKay with a sense of her talent and her strength, McKay manages to illustrate the same sense of lost souls that he incorporates into his poem “Harlem Shadows” by mentioning within the last two lines how the woman’s eyes reveal that “her self was not in that strange place” (14). Her only protection from the harshness of the world she is forced to try to survive in is to escape within her mind to some other realm where white boys do not throw coins at her feet and she is permitted to hold her head high in appropriate clothing and be appreciated for the magnificent person she is. Conclusion Although not as well-known as other Harlem Renaissance writers, Claude McKay offered a highly emotive voice to the movement that beautifully captured the sense of sorrow, desperation and underlying anger at the plight in which black people found themselves as a result of the white race. While they were no longer slaves on paper, the images and concepts expressed through McKay’s writing illustrates that the black people, particularly the black women, were forced into degrading and dehumanizing roles simply as a means of feeding themselves in a world set completely against them in poems such as “The Harlem Dancer” and “Harlem Shadows.” The pervading sense of sadness is not the only emotion he expresses however, as evidenced in his poem “If We Must Die.” Here, he encourages his fellow black men to fight back against the system that has condemned them to such a miserable life. This anger is partially fueled by his outsider perception of what has occurred. Rather than being raised within the subservient culture of the black men born and raised in America, constantly under the yoke of slavery through the enforcement of segregationist laws and the reality of white oppression through fear and violence, McKay had the advantage of being raised in another country, having already had the opportunity to view life from a position of authority as a police officer and having had a chance to see how the rest of the world operated. He was well aware of the tremendous yoke of oppression the black people suffered in America and lent his voice to the effort to make things better. Works Cited Aldrich, Robert & Garry Wotherspoon. Who’s Who in Contemporary Gay and Lesbian History. New York: Routledge, 2001. Brians, Paul. Reading About the World, Vol. 2. Paul Brians, Mary Gallwey, Douglas Hughes, Azfar Hussain, Richard Law, Michael Myers, Michael Nevile, Roger Schlesinger, Alice Spitzer & Susan Swan (Ed.). New York: Harcourt Brace Custom Books, 1998. McKay, Claude. “The Harlem Dancer,” “Harlem Shadows,” “If We Must Die.” Winston, James. “Becoming the People’s Poet: Claude McKay’s Jamaican Years, 1889-1912.” Small Axe. Vol. 7, N. 13, (2003): 17-45. Read More