London And The White City Comparison
Two cities are depicted through compelling, vivid details to convey emotion about each. When misfortune and suffering reigned over the city of London, the speaker expressed the scene at the period of time in London, written by William Blake. Claude McKay pens The White City to illustrate the intense enmity the persona possesses for the city of New York. London and The White City, through comparison and contrast as well as different techniques utilized by each author, provoke stirring and passionate responses to the plight of the inhabitants of London and New York City. Parallels between both poems exist, in the descriptions and reactions kindled from the cities in each. In London, the cries that ring out from all citizens and the stains
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London is the city of decaying churches and tainted mansions, where religion, which should be providing eternal life to souls and reviving lives, is perishing and the government, which should be assisting its citizens, is corrupted and guilty of the deaths of many. New York City, on the other hand, is “ the mighty city through a mist-/ The strident trains that speed the goaded mass,/ The poles and spires and towers vapor-kissed” (9-11). The description appears to be one of a dazzling, modern metropolis, with magnificent architectural feats, which is in stark contrast with the passionate animosity the persona harbors against the city in the previous stanzas. In London, the speaker notices “In every cry of every Man,/ In every Infant’s cry of fear,/ In every voice, in every ban,/ The mind-forg’d manacles I hear” (5-8). The people of London are ensnared in sorrow and anguish, unable to escape the despondency of their lives. They are held captive by the hopelessness London offers to them, with no promise of a finer life ahead. McKay writes in The White City, “My being would be a skeleton, a shell,/ If this dark Passion that fills my every mood/…. Did not forever feed me vital blood” (5-8). The speaker nurtures his ardent hostility against New York because it is what gives him motivation to thrive in his environment. His animosity sustains him, while the citizens of London are barely surviving from day to
London is the city of decaying churches and tainted mansions, where religion, which should be providing eternal life to souls and reviving lives, is perishing and the government, which should be assisting its citizens, is corrupted and guilty of the deaths of many. New York City, on the other hand, is “ the mighty city through a mist-/ The strident trains that speed the goaded mass,/ The poles and spires and towers vapor-kissed” (9-11). The description appears to be one of a dazzling, modern metropolis, with magnificent architectural feats, which is in stark contrast with the passionate animosity the persona harbors against the city in the previous stanzas. In London, the speaker notices “In every cry of every Man,/ In every Infant’s cry of fear,/ In every voice, in every ban,/ The mind-forg’d manacles I hear” (5-8). The people of London are ensnared in sorrow and anguish, unable to escape the despondency of their lives. They are held captive by the hopelessness London offers to them, with no promise of a finer life ahead. McKay writes in The White City, “My being would be a skeleton, a shell,/ If this dark Passion that fills my every mood/…. Did not forever feed me vital blood” (5-8). The speaker nurtures his ardent hostility against New York because it is what gives him motivation to thrive in his environment. His animosity sustains him, while the citizens of London are barely surviving from day to