If We Must Die

“America” by Claude McKay (1921)

Another McKay sonnet dealing in allegory and metaphor, this poem is about the speaker’s relationship to a bigger concept. In this poem’s case, the concept is America and the speaker’s feelings about it. McKay again uses animals and inverted imagery along with some aspect of metamorphosis to show the power the two sides have. In this poem, the two sides are the two sides of America. The speaker appreciates America for the promise it represents, but they also acknowledge the dark side of America.

“Harlem” by Langston Hughes (1951)

Writing about Harlem and the promise it represented, Hughes asks what happens to a dream deferred, but his final question is, “[D]oes it explode?” (Line 11).

This is a famous Harlem poem because it asks a question that all of these poems ask, including “If We Must Die.” The question is how an oppressed group continues to fight for its rights and what happens when those rights are denied. Hughes asks whether all that passion denied will fade away or explode, and though he doesn’t answer the question, he implies the explosion will come. He does this through the structure of the end of the poem where he isolates the explosion and introduces it as a dramatic counter to all preceding lines.