la vita
...ousness of literate black Americans for generations to come as a model of Afro-American heroism, this poem has become a point of reference for the entire racial experience and a touchstone of the Afro-American entry into subjectivity. While they speak for the entire race, the militant selves of the poem are in fact explicitly "male." The phrase "If we must die" utters the poem's call to participation, and it gathers meaning through its repetition in the first and second quatrains. The phrase "O kinsmen!" makes that call to participation explicit; the poem's would-be warriors are men. McKay fails to explicate the unique position of women within this embattled black community, choosing instead to talk about the race by imagining the aspirations of black men. Whatever the position of women, for McKay this battle is between men. The poem enacts McKay's powerful struggle for a masculine identity as a black writer in the midst of racial oppression. In the poem, McKay ultimately retreats to the social order of his youth with its values of personal honor. Death might come, be it not "inglorious." In “If We Must Die” McKay uses rhymes, and metaphors to associate and personify the poem. Using these techniques the audience can identify with the writer and the poem itself. This poem showed that everyone deserves a noble death, a death of honor and respect not to be beaten and treated like an animal but like a human being. The poem is revolutionary, it’s the type of poem that makes people think and take action. He made the reader feel important and recognized the value of a human life. McKay ...