Essay Comparing Mckay And Zamora

Edmund Feng

Humberto Garcia

ENG 057

5/10/2024

The analogy and comparison of Mckay and Zamora—two lives, two stories.

Claude Mckay and Jamira Zamora both immigrated to the US, and both were isolated and alienated. However, differences still divide the two of them, differences rooted in their past - the reasoning behind their immigration, alongside their experiences. To me, Claude and Jamira couldn’t be further apart from one another just because of those differences in history and experiences behind them, not to mention their entire thoughts and beliefs about their immigration and the land they immigrated towards. However, even then, they both show heavy regret towards the past they left behind, alongside the discrimination sought upon
When you look at the structure from a physical perspective, it even seems like it’s a very well-put together poem. Zamora's, on the other hand, is free verse once more—a writing style that is commonly known to have neither rhymes nor a meter included. Looking at it from a physical perspective essentially reveals the same: a mess, with bits of stanzas that string together formally for only a few sections before devolving into multiple sections once more. While these two share the same elements, their usage is completely different. As mentioned already, McKay follows a very organized structure that furthermore pinpoints the idea of the Sonnet being very smooth and laid back, while Zamora’s is fractured and alarmed, each part like a new thought process during his run to the
This one I’m much more excited about looking deep into because it correlates back to the overall structure and tone through its stressed or unstressed pronunciation. Diving right in, McKay. Mckay seems to write his sonnet with a consistent meter. mainly doing it in an iambic pentameter, and around 10 syllables exactly for each line. Throughout the entire Sonnet, he starts each line off unstressed, "I shall return" (McKay, 1), before stressing it right after, "RETURN; I shall RETURN" (McKay). This continues onto the end of the Sonnet, with each line being in the same iambic format, commonly done in most Sonnets, but it just goes far to furthermore prove the fact that the entire Sonnet is a well-organized whole that follows a tired repetition, like a worker toiling away, eager to leave for home. Then, the Zamora. He started his free verse with a petameter for around three stanzas before suddenly shifting completely, writing two more and delving into a tetrameter: “I said, “Freeze, Chino, pará por favor!” (Zamora, 14). As stated, it’s free verse, so it’s not going to have any sort of meter style to follow in the first place; it’s like a ramble, a frenzied recounting that has time to rhyme and string syllables together in a coherent sense. I know Zamora does an amazing job when it comes to that franticness, overall portraying that same hysterical feeling of being