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Comparing Mckay's The Lynching And The Harlem Dancer

887 Words4 Pages

The Harlem Renaissance illustrated the explosion of a new intellectual and artistic vitality among the African American culture in the 1920s. This movement included the beginning of the gradual assimilation of African Americans into a polarized American society among whites. In The Lynching and The Harlem Dancer, Harlem Renaissance poet, Claude McKay, expresses the consequences of African Americans as they attempt to integrate into every day life (diverse syntax). McKay’s poems give two similar examples of discriminatory and obscene actions that a lynching victim and a club dancer must endure. Despite the encouraging atmosphere of the cultural movement, the poet presents the two sonnets in a similar matter to convey the degradation of human …show more content…

He provides the chilling image of children dancing around the “ghastly body” in “fiendish glee.” He emphasizes this image to make a point that the children are being desensitized to disturbing crimes, like lynching, which brings danger to future generations of America (diverse syntax). In addition, McKay uses the physical description of women in the crowd with “steely blue” eyes to highlight the superiority in physical depiction and the true meaning of such hatred towards African Americans. Similarly, McKay portrays an image of the dancer to cue a judgmental feeling from the audience, just as in The Lynching. He describes the dancer as “half-clothed” as her “body swayed.” He provides the image of feminine elegance from the dancer to draw the attention of the crowd. He continues to present a sensual image when describing her with “shiny curls” while the men “tossed coins in praise.” This gives the sense of judgement from the crowd as the men devalue her. The dancer’s “falsely smiling face” implies that the dancer dreads her job and paints the overall image of a sexist audience of men portrayed as superior to the oppressed dancer. The similar interpretations of a lynching victim and a dancer contrasted with similar audience settings elucidates (creative verb) the tragic effects of oppression during the 1920s. McKay portrays an appalling feeling within each victim as they are surrounded by insensitive, enthusiastic people in an audience where they find entertainment in suffering. Through similarities in both poems, the poet is able to emphasize human potential that has been shattered (creative verb) by a persisting social system that engages in racism and

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