Wednesday, February 5, "If We Must Die" by Claude Mckay

by Romare Bearden

As of today, I should have received from you the following graded work: Monday- passive to active voice exercise

           Tuesday- Introduction to realism text-based responses

                    and  passive to active assessment

            Wednesday (that's today) Richard Cory poem responses

Due today: "Richard Cory" responses.

On Friday, February 7 you have an assessment on the 13 vocabulary words from Monday's reading on the introduction to realism.

In class: 1. more background review on Realism

2. "Richard Cory" according to Simon and Garfunkel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwqwAy85CgY

3. Claude Mckay's "If We Must Die"  (class handout / copy below)

Society and Culture

1. The late nineteenth century was a period of tremendous change as political empires broke up, nationalism arose, the power of the middle class replaced that of the aristocracy, and colonialism flourished.

2. The Industrial Revolution greatly changed the social and economic structure as steam engines increased the speed of transportation and manufacturing drew the population to urban areas.

3. Despite tendencies toward liberty, growing middle-class values, and industrial progress, opposition emerged that challenged the assumptions of the new social and political order and revolted against the material consequences of the Industrial Revolution.

4. Although there were efforts to revive religious interest, generally institutional religion diminished in influence in the late nineteenth century and was replaced by personal spiritual, moral, or philosophical beliefs.

5. By the late nineteenth century, colonialism had expanded so that 67 percent of the earth fell under European rule, with the most concentrated imperial efforts directed at Africa.

6. Literature emerged as the artistic medium that best expressed the social, economic, and philosophical concerns of the day, moving away from the issues and styles associated with Romanticism earlier in the century

Claude McKay: If We Must Die (1919)

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In 1919 there was a wave of race riots consisting mainly of white assaults on black neighborhoods in a dozen American cities. Jamaican-born writer Claude McKay responded by writing this sonnet, urging his comrades to fight back. It had a powerful impact, then and later.

For what reason does McKay say even a doomed resistance is worth while?

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 If we must die, let it not be like hogs                                       1
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,                                            5.
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,                         10
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

The form of Mckay's poem is an English or Shakespearean sonnet, which is  the simplest and most flexible pattern of all sonnets, consisting of 3 quatrains of alternating rhyme and a couplet:

a b a b
c d c d
e f e f
g g 

Each quatrain develops a specific idea, but one closely related to the ideas in the other quatrains.
The volta is the final couplet, where the speaker states the consequences. 

Please respond to the following, using textual evidence from Mckay's sonnet.

1.How does the speaker establish that he and his allies are under attack?

.2.What words are used to urge his allies not to give up without a fight?

3.  How does the speaker draw on the emotions of the allies to die honorably?

4. What is the speaker's rallying cry?

 5. Paraphrase the last two lines.

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