1919, the year the poem was written, was a very difficult time. World War I had just ended and many soldiers were returning home. At the same time, the black community faced high rates of racially motivated brutality. Black newspapers were morbid, full of details of clashes between mixed-race people and whites, deadly shootings, and hangings from town to town. From this struggle, Claude McKay wrote If We Must Die, igniting a fire in the black community. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay The poem itself is written in sonnet form. They are written in iambic pentameter. “Iambic” refers to the pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables. An iamb is an unstressed syllable, followed by a stressed syllable: da-DUM. “Pentameter” tells you how many iambics you will find per line. “Penta” means five – so there are five iambics per line. Iambic pentameter. Here is an example of the first line: If we | must die|, let him | not to be | like pigs. Composed of fourteen lines, a sonnet form is indicative of meaning. Sonnets themselves are typically used by poets to evoke religious devotion or romantic love and/or passion. McKay uses the sonnet form to convey these same emotions of devotion and passion in his own play. Additionally, for the entire poem, the rhyme scheme would be: ABABCDCDEFEFGG. Usually sonnets include a “trick.” This is a moment in the poem where the theme or tone changes in a surprising way. In “If We Must Die,” the turn comes at line 9, where the rhyme scheme changes from CD to ED. The speaker calls his loved ones to action: “O parents! We must face the common enemy! » This helps to understand that the overall purpose of the poem is to serve as a call to action. This escapes meaning. This call to action helps us visualize the sonnet as a kind of speech. The one that is offered by a commander to his troops before a monumental battle. The poem itself is composed of very short verses. Understanding the nature of this type of speech sheds light on why McKay chose to write the poem this way. These short lines allow for plenty of pauses when reading the poem aloud. These pauses create a sense of balance, while also creating a sense of suspense as each of his troops hangs on to his words as if it is the last they will hear. Almost every modern film with a battle scene features a leader giving a pre-battle speech inspiring and empowering his people to persevere and fight. We imagine the speaker of this poem as the leaders in those films: a courageous, noble, and inspiring leader fighting within an honorable but oppressed team. Even though we don't know who the speaker and his allies are, or what they are fighting for, we are confident that there is a lot at stake and our speaker is on the right side. Additionally, McKay uses tools such as symbolism and speech. play to best convey the overall meaning of his piece. The metaphor of the dog, in line 3, diminished the humanity of the enemies by showing that they were neither noble nor honorable hunters. McKay uses a different type of tool to show how noble and honorable the speaker and his allies are. The speaker insists that his allies not die like pigs, in line 1. That is, he prefers that they die like men. Also, pigs don't usually die in a way that seems noble. They are generally massacred without sympathy. Additionally, “pork” is a specific type of pork..