If We Must Die Meter

McKay is known for his poetry based around the lives of the Black community, both in New York, particularly Harlem and in Jamaica. 'If We Must Dice' is i of many that delves into the complexities of resistance, power, and social justice/injustice.

If We Must Die by Claude McKay

Summary

'If Nosotros Must Die' past Claude McKay is a rousing poem addressed to the black community advocating for backbone and the will to fight back against oppression.

The verse form begins with the speaker addressing his "kinsmen," telling them they demand to avoid the fate of hogs. They practise not desire to spend the rest of their brusk lives in a pen, waiting to exist slaughtered at any moment. This metaphor is a circuitous ane, just it alludes to oppression, control and injustice. The speaker is seeking out a fashion to fight back against this fate. He, along with the rest of the Black community he'due south speaking to, are not going to permit themselves be torn down. They are going to protest the historical and contemporary racial and social injustices and fight for a meliorate life for themselves.

You tin read the full verse form here.

Structure

'If We Must Die' by Claude McKay is a 14-line Shakespearean sonnet that is structured in the form which has come to be synonymous with the poet's name. It fabricated upwardly of 3 quatrains, or sets of 4 lines, and one concluding couplet or gear up of two rhyming lines. The poem follows a consistent rhyme scheme that conforms to the pattern of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG and it is written in iambic pentameter. This means that each line contains v sets of ii beats, known as metrical feet. The first is unstressed and the 2d stressed. It sounds something like da-DUM, da-DUM.

As is common in Shakespeare'due south poems, the last two lines are a rhyming pair, known equally a couplet. They ofttimes bring with them a turn or volta in the poem. They're sometimes used to answer a question posed in the previous twelve lines, shift the perspective, or even change speakers. In the case of 'If We Must Die' the turn transition in altered, it occurs betwixt the showtime 8 lines and the last half-dozen. This is traditionally where the turn in Petrarchan or Italian sonnets is.

Poetic Techniques

McKay makes use of several poetic techniques in If We Must Die. These include ingemination, enjambment, metaphor, and repetition. The latter, repetition, is the apply and reuse of a specific technique, word, tone, or phrase inside a poem. Information technology tin be seen in phrases likes "If we must die, O let united states of america nobly dice," in which the word, and imagery effectually the globe, "dice" is repeated. The phrase "If we must dice" actually appears word for word twice in the verse form. At the beginning of lines one and five, marking the starts of the ii quatrains.

Ingemination occurs when words are used in succession, or at least appear close together, and begin with the same alphabetic character. For case, "must meet" in line 9 and "bargain," "death-blow" in line eleven.

Metaphor, or a comparison between two, unlike things that does not use "like" or "as" is also nowadays in the text. When using this technique a poet is saying that one thing is another thing, they aren't but similar. For instance, in the beginning quatrains, the speaker uses trapped hogs as a metaphor for oppression, a state he doesn't want "us" to become trapped in.

Another of import technique normally used in poetry is enjambment. It occurs when a line is cut off before its natural stopping point. Enjambment forces a reader down to the next line, and the adjacent, speedily. 1 has to motility forward in order to comfortably resolve a phrase or sentence. At that place are a few examples in 'If We Must Dice,' such every bit the transitions between lines 6 and seven too as seven and viii.

Analysis of If We Must Dice

Lines 1-4

If we must dice, let information technology not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursèd lot.

In the outset quatrain of 'If We Must Die' the speaker begins by telling the listeners, his kinsmen (aka, the Black community which McKay played an important role in) that they should not be "exist like hogs". The mood is rousing and inspirational. Information technology is a phone call to activeness, encouraging the listeners, whoever they may exist, to avoid cowardly actions and techniques of avoidance that might in the terminate only do good their oppressors.

The speaker does not want his listeners to be hunted and penned up ingloriously. Information technology is important that they fight back confronting what is clearly a metaphor for oppression. The scenario is furthered through the introduction of hungry dogs" that "bawl" and "mock at our accursed lot".

Lines v-8

If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may non be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall exist constrained to honor united states of america though dead!

In the second quatrains, the speaker reuses the phrase "If we must die". This time though, he adds that if they are going to die, he hopes they'll die "nobly" with accolade. They tin't reach this feat if they are trapped similar hogs. "We" must stand up upwardly and fight back so that when "our" blood is on the ground it is not in vain.

He hopes that through "our" efforts to be seen and heard, and respected. So, that the monsters that killed, or want to kill, they feel every bit though they should "honor u.s. though dead!"

Lines 9-14

O kinsmen! we must meet the mutual foe!
Though far outnumbered let us prove united states brave,
And for their one thousand blows deal i decease-blow!
What though before u.s. lies the open up grave?
Similar men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

The final section of the poem is six lines long. The speaker addresses his "kinsmen" conspicuously in the first line. He encourages them to stand and meet their "mutual foe" together. Information technology is through their numbers and unity that they are going to testify their bravery ad determination. He hopes, that this will lead them to a victory equally well. They'll deal a "death-blow" to the foe that is oppression.

They volition, "Like men," face the "murderous, cowardly pack" and face the "open grave". These things are inevitable, what's left is to determine how they're going to fight back. Will they allow themselves to be slaughtered and controlled similar hogs? Or volition they turn, stand together and demand a better life? One in which, the speaker likely hopes, they won't have to go along fighting.