The Lynching

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1922

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

The Dehumanization of Racial Violence

A portrayal of the unjust lynching of a Black man, McKay’s “The Lynching” is explicitly about the brutality and cruelty of racial violence. One aspect of that violence McKay chooses to highlight is the dehumanization of Black people at the hands of their white oppressors. The first half of the poem describes the moment the man dies and his “spirit” ascends to “high heaven,” and in these lines the man is described with personal pronouns. The poem refers to “his” spirit (Line 1), “his” father (Line 2), and the star that guided “him” (Line 6) and gave “him” (Line 7) up. These personal pronouns are a reminder that the deceased man was a person.

However, once God has “bidden him” (Line 3) to his bosom and the man’s spirit has ascended to heaven, the Black man is no longer described in personal or even human terms. While describing the star in the night sky during the execution, McKay observes that the star “hung pitifully o’er the swinging char” (Line 8). The previous description of the man’s spirit ascending “in smoke” (Line 1) and this description of his person as “char” imply the man was first hung and then set on fire by the mob. The horror of such an act strips the victim of his humanity and makes him nothing more than the violence done to him. He is not charred or burnt but is char itself. Later descriptions continue this portrayal of the murdered Black man as an object of dehumanized spectacle. “Mixed crowds” (Line 9) eagerly gather to see the “ghastly body hanging in the sun” (Line 10), and young boys dance “round the dreadful thing” (Line 14). Once the man has died, he is no longer described as a human being. He is just a body, an object, and a “thing” for others to gawk at. McKay is thus attempting to show how violence committed against Black people is not only lethal but objectifying and dehumanizing.

Pointlessness of Racial Violence

Throughout “The Lynching,” McKay attempts to reconcile the horrific violence against his race with certain cultural and ideological frameworks, but ultimately concludes there is no meaning or purpose to any of the violence. In the first quatrain, he tries to make sense of the man’s death through a Christian worldview. He characterizes death as the separation of body and spirit, in which the spirit ascends to a better place in eternity (Line 1). He states the man suffered the “cruelest” (Line 2) form of pain to be “bidden” (Line 3) or summoned to the Father’s “bosom” (Line 3), portraying his death as a kind of righteous martyrdom. Furthermore, McKay deliberately parallels the man’s lynching with the death of Christ (See: Symbols & Motifs). As such, it would seem McKay is building to the revelation that the man’s death served some significant purpose.

However, in the final line of the quatrain, McKay acknowledges “The awful sin remained still unforgiven” (Line 4). According to Scripture, although the crucifixion of Christ was a horrible sin, God predetermined it should occur as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world. Although cruel and unjustified, Christ’s death served as the means of salvation for the human race. Unlike the death of Christ, the lynched man’s death has no such benefit or grander purpose. He did not willingly sacrifice himself for the world but died because of others’ pointless cruelty; none of his oppressors and murderers will be forgiven for their crime after he dies.

Having established there is no greater Christian purpose for this murder, McKay turns in the second quatrain to another belief system. He introduces the star that watched over the man’s execution and speculates that it “perchance” (Line 6) was the star that “guided him” (Line 6) his entire life. The man’s guiding star betrayed him though, giving him up to “Fate’s wild whim” (Line 7). McKay characterizes both Fate and the guiding star as capricious and unpredictable. Just as there was no religious significance to the man’s death, there is no purpose or meaning to a death caused by Fate’s “wild” and spur-of-the-moment “whim.” However, McKay never fully establishes that the man was fated to be murdered. The word “perchance” suggests a certain level of uncertainty, and combined with McKay’s previous attempts to reconcile the murder with a Christian worldview, the mention of Fate becomes just another speculation. The poem’s uncertainty and inability to find an explanation for such senseless murder reinforces McKay’s argument that racially motivated violence is senseless and unthinkable within any traditional understanding.

All White People’s Complicity in Racism

Another prevalent theme in the poem is the complicity of all white people in racial violence against Black people. While the adult men hang an innocent Black man, no one protests or attempts to stop it. Instead, the “mixed crowds” (Line 9) of old and young, male and female, come to see the already dead body with both curiosity and approval. Even the women feel no compassion; their eyes remain “steely” (Line 12) and show no signs of “sorrow” (Line 12). The “little lads” (Line 13), likely the children of the unfeeling women and possibly the children of the violent male perpetrators, feel no horror but instead dance “round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee” (Line 14). Like their parents, they accept and delight in violence. Even McKay’s description of the children as “lynchers that were to be” (Line 13) demonstrates his belief that all white people, even the innocent-seeming children, will ultimately condone violence and later perpetrate it themselves.