The Lynching By Claude Mckay Essay

Lynching: the practice of hanging and killing an African-American in expression of pure and utter hatred. In the 1800’s through the 1960’s Lynching was very popular, over 3,446 African-Americans were lynched ( ). During this time frame, Americans had little to no sympathy for African-Americans. They punished them by lynching and burning them, they also taught their children to hate so they can raise their children to hate too. Claude Mckay's poem describes how children dance around a lynched body.

In the poem, “The Lynching” by Claude McKay, a group of people lynch an African-American male by hanging him and burning him without showing any sympathy. Many of them did not want to gaze at the charred body, “The women thronged to look, but never a one/Showed sorrow in her eyes of steely blue” (McKay 11/12). But they didn't hesitate to “Dance round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee” (McKay 14). In the following quote it shows how children did not feel sympathy.

In the quote, “His spirit is smoke ascended to high heaven./His father, by the cruelest way of pain,/Had bidden him to his bosom once again;/The awful sin remained still unforgiven” (McKay 1/4). This is an allusion to the story of Jesus’s because it is similar to the way Jesus was killed. It describes how his spirit floated up to heaven like smoke. In addition, there is also irony in the poem. In the quote “All night a bright and solitary star/(Perchance the one that ever guided him, Yet gave him up at last to Fate's wild whim)” (McKay 5/7). This shows irony because it refers to the north star, which he followed to get to the better land. In which eventually killed