Critical Analysis of Fate and Suffering in ‘The Lynching’ Anonymous College

Claude McKay’s sonnet explores the differences between innocence and guilt; the contrast between our own hateful world and the purity of God. As a result, McKay builds the themes of racism and brutality, most effectively by using biblical allusion of the lynching of the black male. McKay references the ‘solitary star’ (the north star), and how it ‘guided him’ to ‘Fate’s wild whim’. From this, the reader senses an undertone of tragedy; the noun ‘whim’ suggests there is no logic behind his death, it is merely an act of pure hatred. The way the body ‘pitifully hung o’er the swinging char’ somewhat connotes a message of defeat. The black man had no chance of happiness, no chance of acceptance. The adjective ‘pitifully’ conveys a broken man, someone who had perhaps been expecting this fate, a sense of acceptance on the part of the victim.

Within the first quatrain of McKay’s sonnet, there is clear conflict between the ‘cruellest way of pain’; the darkest elements of humanity (the ‘awful sin’), and the relationship with a divine being: God (guilt and innocence). The tension played upon with these two ideas allows McKay to explore the theme of religion and spirituality; we learn how it can provide a haven in the midst of such...