Close reading on the poem “If We Must Die” by Claude McKay If We Must Die If we must die—let it 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 accursed lot. If we must die—oh, let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honor us though dead! Oh, Kinsmen! We must meet the common foe; Though far outnumbered, let us show us brave, And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow! What though before us lies the open grave?
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Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back! In his poem “If We Must Die” Claude McKay calls on his Kinsmen to “meet the common foe”. By using animal imagery describing the oppressed as well as the oppressor, he presents their relation as the one of poor hunted victims and unscrupulous hunters and thereby delivers reason and justification to fight back. McKay uses the animal imagery on the oppressed to picture them as the hunted and thus points to the honour of the oppressed to make them get up and fight back.
In the first quatrain of the sonnet the oppressed in their actual situation are presented as “hogs” being hunted and penned in an inglorious spot” (l 1;amp;2). This unpleasant comparison of the oppressed with a lot of wild animals in an inglorious spot is used to cause a strong emotional reaction of the addressed. By showing how miserable they look in their present situation, he is appealing them by their honour, trying to get them off their chairs, start denying the situation and showing a reaction in the way of ;lt;No! I don’t want to be a hunted animal any longer! gt;
Also , McKay shows the necessity of fighting back by saying that while being penned there is no way to escape. “If we must die—let it not be like hogs… let us nobly die. ” (l 1- 5) As these lines imply, the decision to make is not between to die or not to die but between being slaughtered like animals and fighting back like a noble man. Again the author points to the honour of the oppressed but also makes use of the other aspects of being penned, namely the fact of having no choice but to fight back and having nothing to lose.
As there is nothing as dangerous as a trapped animal, the oppressed are described as a dangerous opponent and the ability to fight back is attributed to them. By illustrating the situation of the oppressed as the one of a penned hog, as a trapped animal with nothing to lose, the author succeeds in conveying the impression of having a reason and the ability to act as well as he suggests that there is no other choice than to do so.
Animal imagery is also applied to the oppressors to increase the willingness of the oppressed to fight them back, as they are turned into monsters and thereby dehumanized and lowered in their state of superiority. The oppressors are depicted as a barking, coward pack of mad and hungry dogs and with it, as it is explicitly said in line 7, set on the level of a monster. This helps in a way illustrating the situation as even more terrible but also dehumanizes the enemies and lowers them in their superiority, as the role of the oppressed fighting back is portrayed as the noble men of precious blood fighting against monsters (l5-7).
This role allocation is another justification to act against the oppressors and not having any feeling for him. The only thing that one could feel for a threatening monster is hate, a feeling that the author tries to raise in line 4, where the enemy is not only about to kill the oppressed but also makes fun of the situation. By picturing the oppressor as an evil and mad monster and attributing guilt and bad intensions to them, the author leads the oppressed to hate the opponent and justifies fighting back.
To conclude, by the use of animal imagery McKay manages to illustrate the oppressed and oppressor relationship as the fight of evil and mad monsters versus a penned lot of prey animal. While he presents the actual situation as terrible and unjust as possible, he addresses the sense of honour and justice of the oppressed. By all this the poet leads the addressed to deny the actual situation, feel hate for the oppressor and have a justification to get up and fight back.
