Claude McKay's Views on "America"

It is often said that a person’s personal trials and tribulations best serve as influences for poetry. In the 1920s, Claude McKay had already encountered enough experiences to shape his poetry. As part of the Harlem Renaissance, he was helping to blaze a new path for blacks across America, while having to deal with the negative aspects of our nation such as racism and segregation. His conflicting views helped shape his form and content in his well known poem “America.”

In “America,” McKay fuses early 16th century form with a little bit of his own style. The form of the poem makes it a traditional Shakespearean sonnet with fourteen lines and the familiar a b a b c d c d e f e f g g rhyme scheme. The poem also seems to follow the iambic pentameter meter thus giving it a fluid sense of rhythm. However, McKay deviates from the traditional form when he essentially splits the poem into two blocks of seven lines each. This split is readily apparent when examining the eighth line of the poem. In traditional sonnets, that line should be the conclusion to the second quatrain whereas in this poem it is the beginning of a new sentence and idea. The tone in each set of seven lines is also different. The first seven lines take on a critical and bleak view towards America. Yet while pessimism pervades through the second set of lines, one cannot help but notice the hope invoked in the last sentence with regard to priceless treasures out in the distance. It’s as if McKay has the same hope for America as he does for his poem: infusing good aspects of America’s time honored traditions with new ideas to make an even better product.

A sense of duality also seems to run through the actual content of McKay’s poem, especially during his description of America. Although the narrator personifies America to allow readers to more readily relate, we see two opposite extremes. On the one hand the humanly figure of America seems hateful with actions such as, “…stealing my breath of life…” He also describes America using water as a metaphor. He moves from the idea of tides flowing with vigor to the even more destructive example of a flood in order to best illustrate the magnitude of what he faces. McKay uses irony when describing himself as a rebel fronting a king in state. America has never had a king but for oppressed minorities it must surely have felt that way for many years. Likewise, the only way American’s ever received their own independence was by confronting a king. Yet the overwhelming sense of negativity never consumes the poem because the speaker knows that things can better. While the speaker acknowledges that it will not be easy and is at best a tenuous reality, he sees that there is the foundation for change when he looks towards the future. Though not very promising, it is the idea of change for the better that seems to allow him to “…love this cultured hell that tests my youth…”

Claude McKay is unique in his ability to weave a lifetime’s worth of black struggles into one simple sonnet. Yet the further we, as humans, delve into his poem, the more we can see that his story is one which many of us can relate to even in today’s society. While we have come a long way in our quest for a better America, we can strive to do better. Until this challenge has been met, Claude McKay’s poem will continue to serve as hopeful reminder of what is possible.

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