Question

HELP ASAP SOCIAL COMMENTARY AND ARGUMENT If we must die, let it not be like hogs

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,
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, And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
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!

1. What does McKay compare the people being hurt to? What is the connotation of the word he uses?

2. What does McKay compare the people who are hurting others to? What is the connotation of the word he uses?
3. How does McKay not want to die?

4. How does McKay want to die?

5. What is McKay's argument about death in this poem?

6. Knowing that this poem was written in response to an act of racial violence, who do you think Claude McKay's audience is?

Answer 1

1. In the poem, McKay compares the people being hurt to hogs who are hunted and penned in an inglorious spot. The connotation of the word "hogs" is negative and dehumanizing, suggesting that the people being hurt are being treated as inferior and inhumane.
2. McKay compares the people who are hurting others to mad and hungry dogs. The connotation of the word "dogs" is also negative and dehumanizing, suggesting that the people who are hurting others are behaving like animals.
3. McKay does not want to die as hogs, hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, while the mad and hungry dogs mock their accursed lot.
4. McKay wants to die nobly, so that their precious blood may not be shed in vain and that even the monsters they defy will be constrained to honor them though dead.
5. In the poem, McKay argues that if they must die, they should die nobly, so that their deaths will not be in vain and that they will be honored even in death.
6. Knowing that this poem was written in response to an act of racial violence, it is likely that McKay's audience is the African American community. The poem can be seen as a call to action and a message of encouragement to stand up against racial violence and oppression.