Claude McKay: An Immigrant's Poem of Experience in America - Essay Sample

Introduction

Claude McKay was an immigrant to the US where he was writing about different themes that are based on his experience from Jamaica and US, he becomes part of the Harlem Renaissance movement group of African writer who brought ideas together. His work focusses mostly on what he experienced in a foreign country, both positive and negative.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

"If We Must Die" is a Shakespearean sonnet poem that was written by the Jamaican author who stayed in America Claude McKay in the year 1919. The poem is all about the political resistance in the US, Claude writes to the oppressed in-country to resist their oppressors they should resist violently and bravely even if it means to die but let them die for their rights, Claude encourages the oppressed not to give up on the oppressors any soon until they win the war. Claude calls for the blacks and the whites to resist the racism in the country against the blacks.

The poem does not only encourage the resistance on the anti-blacks in the country but also to any other oppression that might exist in the country, the poem is all about the inspiration of the oppressed to come out from sleep and to fight for their freedom and rights in their country. Claude views the whites as racist in their country and does not consider blacks as human beings. The politicians who are the oppressors to their citizens are on watch, and Claude inspires the oppressed to come out and fight for their freedom and rights in their own country.

The "America" another poem from Claude McKay where he describes all sorts of the suffering he is undergoing in the country because of his skin color, in the poem Claude has used words that are of much pain to express all that he is undergoing in the country but despite all the oppression he is experiencing still he declares his love for the country. Claude describes America as "hell" where the black skin is not seen as human beings but as animals and treated just like animals.

Through the poem, Claude still can fight back the oppression from the racists and not ready to give, he inspires those undergoing through the oppression to fight back and defeat the oppressors. Claude discusses the inequality that some of the citizens in America experience in the 20th century, something that should not be happening at that time. Even then some of the whites are oppressed in their homeland country something that should not be happening, Claude expresses both the positive and negative experiences of US in his poem being a black in the country makes him undergo all sorts of suffering, and he is surprised that even some whites undergo what is going in the US, he inspires the oppressed to come out from the slumber and fight for their freedom and rights without fear because they will win.

The poem "The White House" by Claude McKay which is Shakespearian sonnet bring out important issues that are affecting people living in the country, from the poem it is clear that there is much racism in the country, people are discriminated based on their skin color and level of their class in terms of earning. White supremacy is a big issue in the poem affecting the country and addressed by the poet. The whites in the country view themselves as superior that the blacks, and this results in discrimination in the country. There is no democracy in the country, services are not delivered to all the citizens but delivered based on some factors like skin color and class. In the poem, Claude still encourages the oppressed to fight for their freedom and rights to stop the oppressors from undermining a section of the population in the country.

Works Cited

Die, If We Must, and by Claude McKay. "If We Must Die." Black Plots & Black Characters: A Handbook for Afro-American Literature (1979): 94.

McKay, Claude. The Negroes in America. Associated Faculty PressInc, 1979.

Warren, Stanley, and Claude McKay. "Claude McKay as an Artist." Negro History Bulletin 40.2 (1977): 685-687.