Alan Seeger And If We Must Die

“Pride and death do not mix, unless you have a sense of dignity” Death goes back to the beginning of time, nobody can escape it, a re occurring natural cycle that may come at any given point in your lifetime, peaceful or tragic. The Freedom of any country that fights willingly must have pride and dignity pertaining to death. Comparing two poems from two different authors, McKay and Seeger have different backgrounds, but have a similar writing style in some of the poems they write. In “I Have a Rendezvous with Death” by Alan Seeger, and “If We Must Die” by Claude McKay, both authors show through the use of diction that death should not be feared and are willing to dance around death with dignity and pride. Seeger and McKay both discuss how

In “If We Must Die” McKay states, “If we must die, O let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain” (lines 5-6). Dying nobly resembles the higher power he wants to die for in a respectful way, not in vain like a UN faithful person to the higher power. Back in this time it was very disrespectful to die in vain or cowardly. In the historical source “Book chronicles death, faith and reburial in the Civil War” by Albert B. Southwick, he states “In the early months there was much talk about the “good death,” when men died nobly and proudly” (Lines 24-25). . Southwick backs the poem of McKay by, word choice and the meanings of the words he is saying, back in their time there was a difference between dying a honorably or in vain and it actually meant something to the people of that time, note how he said “good death”. Also in “I have a Rendezvous with Death” Seeger mentions his higher power in a different way, but for the same meaning of the theme. He states “God knows `twere better to be deep Pillowed in silk and scented down, Where love throbs out in blissful sleep” (Lines 15-17). Although he is not on the battlefield at the very moment mentioning his higher power, he has to wait until

Knowing that at any given moment death can be around the corner. In “If We Must Die” McKay states “So that our precious blood may not be shed in vain; then even the monsters we defy shall be constrained to honor us through the dead” (Lines 6-8). This implies that even after the “monsters or dogs” kill them in a brutal in humane fashion, they must still fight and make the enemy see even after what has happened that they must respect the way the people went out, with a fight. An article directly relating to this poem is “Where it all goes down” by Allen Winsted, he states “He starts to draw out their emotions, picking at their pride. Their heads lift a little higher with every sentence the speaker says. Before you know it, they are all on their feet and ready to face their enemy bravely, though they will all surely die” (Lines 16-18). The sense of pride he is saying is that after all of the hurt physically, mentally, and emotionally these people have gone through by their enemy is making them stronger in every aspect the more it happens. It does not take a lot for a human to get put down and want to give up with no sense of pride left, but it takes a true warrior to stand up and fight whether it may be physical or not on any battlefield to stand up for what is