“The Lynching”
By: ClaudeMcKay
By: Erica Greco
Background Information
 Born in Jamaica on
September 15 1889, the
youngest of 11 children;
died in may 22, 1948
 Suffered from high blood
pressure and heart disease
 Abandoned his lifelong
agnosticism and embraced
Catholicism
 Wrote such classics as
Harlem Shadows, Harlem:
Negro Metropolis, My Green
Hills of Jamaica, Banana
Bottom, and The Negroes in
America
 He is considered as the
"foremost left-wing black
intellectual of his age”
 Influenced black authors
including James Baldwin
and Richard Wright.
The Lynching
By: Claude McKay
His spirit in 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.
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)
Hung pitifully o'er the swinging char.
Day dawned, and soon the mixed crowds came
to view
The ghastly body swaying in the sun
The women thronged to look, but never a one
Showed sorrow in her eyes of steely blue;
And little lads, lynchers that were to be,
Danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish
glee.
Analysis:
Title:
Purpose
Connotation
Attitude
Shifts
Title (2)
Theme
Factoids:
• Not only African Americas were
lynched but white men were as well.
Lynching was a tool that mobs (like
the KKK) used for the persecution of
blacks and most people in pursuit of
integration rights were killed,
making it a racist and politically
incorrect punishment
• Lynching is defined as
murder for supposed
crime: to seize
somebody believed to
have committed a crime
and put him or her to
death immediately and
without trial
• The title of this work
speaks for itself, it tells
of a story of a man who
is lynched for a “awful
sin” that of which is not
named and ethnicity
untold. Lynching was
common in the 1920’s
but most people were
killed only because of
their skin color
Analysis:
•
Title
Purpose:
Connotation
Attitude
Shifts
Title (2)
Theme
•
The poem shows the racial injustice
in the 19th century for African
Americans, it shows the true
feelings of the community when
someone is lynched and how there
is no compassion for any of the
victims
It goes from the peacefulness of
ascending to heaven to be with his
father to the sorrow-less women
and the children who dance around
his body, “fiendish glee”.
Analysis:
Title
Purpose
Connotation:
Attitude
Shifts
Title (2)
Theme
Poetic Devices
• “high heaven” is an example of
alliteration
• “night a bright” is an example of
rhyme
• “fate's wild whim” is not only
personification but is alliteration too
• “little lads, lynchers” is an example of
alliteration
• “eyes of steely blue” is an example of
imagery
Analysis:
Title
Purpose
Connotation
Attitude:
Shifts
Title (2)
Theme
The attitude or tone of the poem starts
out very peaceful and spiritual but then
turns sad and distressed, because even
though the man was rising up to
heaven where his body remained was
being desecrated and destroyed by an
angry mob. And because of the awful
and violent ways they treat the body
the assumption could be made that the
man was African American
Analysis:
Title
Purpose
Connotation
Attitude
Shifts:
Title (2):
Theme:
• The poem is arranged in an ABBA formation
• The title of the poem remains the same and
recalls of a tale of a man lynched for his
crimes
• The theme of The Lynching is to tell the
reader of the time in which Claude lived and
what circumstances there were for people
who committed crimes in this time whether
white or black