Claude Mckay America

Claude McKay was a poet during the Harlem Renaissance period and considered himself a voice of his people. A poet projecting the feelings of the colored youth as well as the African American community, who did not have one. “America” by Claude McKay is a sonnet that does not explore the meaning of love like traditional sonnets do, but instead McKay uses the form of a sonnet to express the rage and frustration the African Americans were feeling during that time period. A sonnet is one of the oldest forms of poetry, a classic. It follows a set of rules: fourteen lines, iambic pentameter, and end-rhyme scheme, that make a poem a sonnet which the poem “America” decides not follow strictly. Even though the poem does follow most of the rules of
That is not the case of this sonnet. McKay uses the sonnet to express the emotions the African Americans are feeling towards the injustice they are suffering in America. Though the African Americans do love America they also to some extent feel hate for America. For example McKay says “I love this cultured hell that tests my youth?” McKay mentions his love for America and then follows it with an oxymoron “cultured hell” showing the confusing emotions the African Americans are suffering with, not being able to fully love America but also not fully hating America. McKay also portrays the pain and pleasure his people are feeling. For instance the metaphor “she feeds me bread of bitterness,/ And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth,” shows the suffering his people is going through. His people are constantly being discriminated against and do not have the freedom of speech to express the emotions they keep inside. The pain to be alive but not accepted and having there voices taken away, yelling but never being heard. Further into the poem he mentions how despite America being “hell” it still fills his people up with “her vigor…/Giving [them] strength erect against her hate.” America is a hard place for his people to live in but even then it does not leave them unprotected it also gives them power and courage to fight against the injustices they are facing, after all America is known for its promise of freedom. He ends by saying he holds no “terror, malice, not a word of jeer” towards America. In the end his people still love America even if it does not treat them fairly and makes them feel