18 pages • 36 minutes read
America
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Symbols & Motifs
Coexistence of Opposites
The coexistence of opposites is a recurring motif in the poem. This applies both to the speaker’s feelings and to America as he experiences it. He feels “bitterness” (Line 1) because he is treated so badly—bitterness is metaphorically what he is fed, so he cannot help but feel it; but despite this, he also loves the country. He thus maintains two apparently contradictory feelings. Moreover, in spite of his vulnerability to irrational prejudice, there is also a kind of invincibility in his manner; this coexisting vulnerability and invincibility is another paradox (a paradox is a statement that, on the face of it, seems contradictory, yet on closer examination can reveal a truth). He knows how to stand tall, without hatred or fear, and even lifts himself far beyond present circumstances and becomes a seer and prophet (Lines 11-14).
America too embodies opposites; it has great strength yet is ultimately vulnerable to the inevitable and destructive tide of “Time” (Line 13); the word is capitalized partly to emphasize the point. Time will work its way on America, just as it does with everything else.
America also embodies both masculine and feminine attributes. The poet personifies America as a mother who is less than nourishing to her child, the Black man—and the water images with which she is described (“Her vigor flows like tides” [Line 5]) are traditionally feminine. Yet America also possesses a strength—“bigness” (Line 7), “vigor” (Line 5), and “might” (Line 12)—which are traditionally masculine traits.
The Cultured Hell
The idea of a “cultured hell” (Line 4) is interwoven with the motif of coexisting opposites, and it plays into the theme of racism and oppression. The word “cultured” usually suggests refinement and enlightened behavior. For the speaker, however, America is a “cultured hell” (Line 4), which seems paradoxical. Indeed, he describes America with a metaphor invoking not civilization but animalism—a tiger whose “tooth” (Line 2) sinks into the speaker’s throat. This is barbarism, the very opposite of culture.
The motif’s historical context sheds more light. Several years before McKay’s poem, Oswald Spengler published the first volume of what would become one of the most widely read and deeply influential modern philosophical texts, The Decline of the West. Its influence is detectable in the motif of a “cultured hell”; the poet was almost certainly aware of Spengler, given his and his mentors’ interest in European philosophy. Spengler’s extensive study of Western culture delineated a fatalistic, cyclical model of history: Civilizations continually rise and inevitably fall, forever cycling between barbarism and “culture.” The biggest portent of decline, according to Spengler, is sophisticated barbarism, in which a technologically advanced but morally corrupt civilization uses its refined systems for inhumane ends. This sophisticated barbarism—this “cultured hell”—would have described the American institution of segregation and, theoretically, warned of the nation’s downfall. The last four lines of McKay’s poem especially conjure this philosophy of history:
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders there,
Beneath the touch of Time’s unerring hand,
Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand (Lines 11-14).
McKay’s poem is not a direct extension of Spengler’s cyclical philosophy of history, nor can it be reduced to its historical context, but the “cultured hell” motif suggests the poet’s discernment of sophisticated barbarism within American institutionalized racism.
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By Claude McKay
