Poetry Synthesis Essay

The two poems chosen to discuss for the three-part thesis argument are Claude Mckay’s poem titled “If We Must Die” poem and Langston Hughes’ poem titled “Mother to Son”. Claude Mckay’s poem “If We Must Die” is a piece that was written with the intention to call the black community to remain strong in their efforts in fighting back against oppression. From the very start of this poem, the author decides to use his first literary device in the poem. The speaker of the poem is calling out to his “kinsmen”, he is expressing to them that they must avoid the fate of hogs. This is a complex metaphor. The speaker is stressing that they must remain strong as they do not want to live the rest of their lives in a small cage waiting for their lives to

The speaker is saying let us not be silent but speak up and keep on. Mckay compares the oppressors to dogs. Who has forced his black brothers and sisters against a wall so that they have no means of escaping their fate. Mckay says that even with their backs to the wall they will not let up, instead, they will fight back against their attackers. Another device that Mckay used in his poem is repetition. The word “die” is repeated a few times in the poem and the saying “If we must die” appears word for word twice in the poem. Since here the main theme is death and more so avoiding death the author wants to place a lot of emphasis on that word. Through the use of metaphors and imagery, Claude McKay’s ‘If We Must Die’ and Langston Hughes’ ‘Mother to Son’ effectively let the message be known of perseverance in the face of oppression. Looking at Mckay’s metaphors of the hog and Hughe’s metaphor of the staircase both serve to illustrate the struggles faced by the black community, while the language creates

This is a beautiful poem about a mother warning her son about the obstacles one will face in life. Here the biggest literary device used is a metaphor. This is a similar trait that the previous poem also has. The author compares life to a staircase. Everyone has a different staircase and some are clear and smooth while others are rugged and broken. Stairs require effort. To get to the top of the staircase one must climb from the bottom to the top. To some with privilege, the climb will be short and sweet but to others, it will be a long and exhausting way up. The mother going through life had hardships that made her staircase have splinters and broken boards. These are the hard hits of life that one inevitably goes through. She kept going in spite of all life threw at her. Here the Mother is warning her son to never stop and sit down or turn around. Even if he gets exhausted he must keep trudging up the stairs. For those that were not aware, Hughes was very present in the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes wrote vigorously about the troubles that Black people faced in America. After knowing this one can assume that in Hughes' poem, she is also talking about race. Being black in America definitely would alter your staircase. As there are troubles that only Black people will face solely because of the color of their skin. When the author says that “Life has been no crystal staircase” it is because a crystal staircase would be smooth.