Claude Mckay If We Must Die

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The poem If We Must Die by Claude McKay really stresses the importance of dying in honor and fighting back. In the 6th, 7th, and 8th lines, McKay uses the word honor to describe how they should die. If he is going to die, he wants to die in honor not in vain to his enemies. “If we must die, O let us nobly die” really broadens on the theme of dying in honor. Although he does not plainly use the word honor this time, he is still conveying the image across by using the word nobly instead which is synonymous to honor. The very last line of the poem, “Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!”, was the most powerful line of the whole sonnet. McKay really emphasizes that even if they die fighting back it will still be in honor. They will fight