Comparing Violence In The Lynching And Claude Mckay

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The Harlem Renaissance is considered the Golden Age in African American culture, manifesting in literature, music, stage performance, and art. During that time, two very well known poets, Langston Hughes and Claude McKay had written poems that connect to things that would often occur. The Ballad of the Landlord, by Langston Hughes, described the anger that tenants would experience just trying to get landlords to fix certain things. The Lynching, by Claude McKay, described the horrors that African Americans would have to go through and the sights that the young ones would have to witness and later grow up to become lynchers themselves. The Lynching and The Ballad of the Landlord both demonstrate vivid images of violence, yet have many similarities …show more content…

In The Lynching, there are lynchers and a mix of black and white people watching an innocent man get lynched but they all “danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee” (McKay 14). This means that nobody cares for the man being lynched and all they did was cheer. In The Ballad of the Landlord, there is the landlord, the press, the judge, and the police that are on the landlords side and not helping the tenant in any way. After all of the repairs he was mentioning to the landlord, the tenant decides to raise his voice and take a more violent turn saying that the landlord is “talking high and mighty” and that he “ain't gonna be able to say a word” if he hits him (Hughes 17/19). The landlord’s way of resolving this was to call the police so that they can “come and get this man” (Hughes 22). This shows that the landlord has all of the power and that it doesn’t matter what the tenant says because he will end up with no power regardless. By depicting such violent acts throughout the poems, the poets are trying to show that African Americans don’t have much power and are always seen as low-class …show more content…

In The Lynching, everyone, including women and children, is gathering around the “ghastly body swaying in the sun” watching an innocent man get lynched (McKay 10). McKay describes the man being lynched in this way to show how horrible the act of lynching is. In the end, the lynching process has always ended with a death of someone who was innocent. In The Ballad of the Landlord, the tenant says that he won’t pay the landlord anything until he fixes “this house up new” (Hughes 12). The landlord calls the police and tells them that the tenant is “trying to ruin the government” just so that he can be arrested (Hughes 23). Hughes is trying to show the reader that because of what little power African Americans have, white people can just say anything and everyone will be on their side just how the judge and the press were on the landlords side. These poems both show African Americans being mistreated, yet both have very different outcomes: death and

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