Holly Patton
English IV-AP
Mrs. Jernigan
23 February 2011
“The White City”
Claude McKay
Poet McKay clearly has harbored a disgruntled dislike for this “white city” (which, if I were to take a guess, is a metonymical representation of the white race) deep within his soul for most of his life. His paradoxical lines express the common view that this city is “mighty” yet his hatred for it is a “dark Passion that fills [his] every mood/ And makes [his] heaven in the white world’s hell.” McKay holds true to the structure of the traditional, fourteen-line sonnet, but he manages to relay his deep-seeded loathing in the correct format without sounding stifled or hurried. The structure assists McKay in that his words do not sound scathing or overly vehement. On the contrary, the specific format contributes to the poem’s genuine intensity.
McKay sounds as if he has been slighted by this “white city” for the span of his life. In researching his life, he spent a majority of his life in Harlem at the peak of racist movements. He hated every aspect of it, yet his first line in this poem shows almost passive nature to its treachery: “I will not toy with it nor bend an inch.” Is he scared? Does he see it as a futile attempt? These questions are left unanswered. What is not unanswered is his unadulterated hatred for the society he sees prospering around him.
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