If We Must Die Summary & Analysis
by Claude McKay

Question about this poem?
Have a question about this poem?
Have a specific question about this poem?
Have a specific question about this poem?
Have a specific question about this poem?
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
Ask us
Ask us
Ask a question
Ask a question
Ask a question

The Full Text of “If We Must Die”

1If we must die, let it not be like hogs

2Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,

3While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,

4Making their mock at our accursèd lot.

5If we must die, O let us nobly die,

6So that our precious blood may not be shed

7In vain; then even the monsters we defy

8Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

9O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!

10Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,

11And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!

12What though before us lies the open grave?

13Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

14Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

  • “If We Must Die” Introduction

    • “If We Must Die” is a Shakespearean sonnet written by the Jamaican poet Claude McKay in 1919. It is a poem of political resistance: it calls for oppressed people to resist their oppressors, violently and bravely—even if they die in the struggle. Though the poem has most often been read as a call to resist anti-Black racism, it does not limit its call for resistance to a specific kind of oppression. As a result, it has served as an inspiration to a wide variety of oppressed people around the globe as they fight for their rights and freedom.

  • “If We Must Die” Summary

    • If we have to die, let's not die like pigs, hunted and trapped in some dishonorable place, while all around us hungry hunting dogs bark like crazy, mocking us for our terrible fate. If we have to die, let’s die with honor, so that we don't sacrifice our valuable blood for nothing. Then even the bad people we rebel against will have to honor us, even though we're dead. Oh fellow sufferers, we have to fight our mutual enemy. Even though we are seriously outnumbered, let's show them how brave we are. And for all the blows they give us, let's return one killing hit. Who cares if our open graves are right in front of us? We’ll fight these murderous cowards like men, our backs against the wall, fighting back even as we die!

  • “If We Must Die” Themes

    • Theme Violence, Dignity, and Resistance

      Violence, Dignity, and Resistance

      "If We Must Die" is a poem about confronting oppression. The speaker addresses a group of oppressed people—a group that the speaker identifies with and seems to be part of. These people have been stripped of their dignity and freedom and are in despair, cornered by violent oppressors. Faced with this desperate situation, the speaker proposes a radical solution for their suffering. The poem argues that violent, even suicidal, acts of resistance are the only viable option for this oppressed group—the only way they can reclaim their dignity and freedom.

      The people that the speaker of "If We Must Die" addresses are oppressed, so much so that they are in danger of losing not only their lives but also their humanity. The speaker describes these people as surrounded by "monsters" and "mad and hungry dogs" who will inflict a "thousand blows" upon them. They are "far outnumbered" by these monsters. These metaphors indicate that the group of people the poem addresses is a minority community threatened by violence from a larger and more powerful group.

      The oppression that the group suffers threatens to turn them into animals, figuratively speaking—to deprive them of their humanity. As the speaker notes in line 1, they are in danger of dying "like hogs." But the speaker's metaphors imply that the people who oppress them have also lost their humanity. The speaker consistently describes these oppressors as horrifying, inhuman creatures; again, they are "mad and hungry dogs" and "monsters." The poem thus hints that oppression diminishes the humanity of everyone involved, both oppressor and oppressed.

      The speaker goes on to propose a way for the oppressed group to regain its humanity: violent resistance. The speaker proposes to match violence with violence, saying that the group being addressed should exchange "their [the oppressor's] thousand blows" for "one death blow." Though the speaker acknowledges that this group must die, they can nonetheless die "fighting back."

      Essentially, "If We Must Die" offers two options to the oppressed people it addresses: they can either die "like hogs" or "like men." Notably, the speaker and the group of oppressed people don't have any choice about whether they live or die. Their situation is so desperate that they can only decide how they die. But, the speaker points out, not all deaths are equal. To die "like hogs" will only underline the oppression they already suffer. To die "like men," however, will allow them to attain some measure of freedom and dignity and to retain—in death if not in life—the humanity they are in danger of losing. As a result of their bravery, the "monsters" who oppress them will be forced to recognize their humanity, to "honor [them] though dead."

      The poem thus proposes violent resistance as the only way to reclaim humanity and dignity in a desperate situation. However, it also indicates that some form of oppression may always persist, when the speaker says: "even the monsters we defy / Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!" The oppressed people's bravery, it seems, forces the oppressors to recognize their humanity. That is, humanity only comes when the oppressors finally grant it—even if the oppressed take the action the speaker recommends. In this way, the poem underscores the persistence of precisely the problem the speaker is trying to overcome: the oppressors have the power to deprive other people of their humanity, and taking that power away from them may be a nearly impossible task.

  • Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “If We Must Die”

    • Lines 1-4

      If we must die, let it not be like hogs
      Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
      While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
      Making their mock at our accursèd lot.

      The first 4 lines of “If We Must Die” establish the poem’s theme and introduce its form.

      As the poem opens, the speaker outlines a desperate situation. Using apostrophe, the speaker addresses a group of oppressed people who seem to be living under the threat of certain death. (And the speaker is part of this group: he or she addresses them as “we” in the first line.) Given the death they face, the speaker argues that the group must not die “like hogs.” This simile shows the speaker's fear that the group will be slaughtered like domesticated animals—“hunted" as though they had been raised simply to be killed. In other words, the speaker is afraid that their deaths will strip them of their dignity and independence—and, more importantly, of their humanity.

      However, a parallel figure of speech suggests that the oppressors’ violence will also strip the oppressors themselves of their own humanity. Using a metaphor, the speaker describes the oppressors as “mad and hungry dogs.” Both metaphor and simile personify the animals in question. The dogs, for instance, “mock” the “accursed lot” of the hogs. The combination of metaphor and personification lets the speaker vividly show how the oppressors have no pity for the people they slaughter; indeed, chillingly, they find their suffering humorous. No one, it seems, is particularly human within such a destructive society.

      Even from just these first lines, it's already clear that “If We Must Die” describes a dark and desperate situation. However, they also establish the ways in which the poem itself is elegant and polished. Throughout, the speaker uses refined diction such as "accurséd"—some of it already old-fashioned by the time McKay wrote the poem in 1919. The form of the poem is also both elegant and old-fashioned, a Shakespearean sonnet. This form dates to the middle ages and it became popular in English in the 16th century. The form was used by some of McKay’s literary heroes, including poets like John Milton. By writing a Shakespearean sonnet, McKay proves that a contemporary Black writer can match the prominent dead white men of English poetry, on their own turf, using their forms.

      The speaker shows off their own literary skill, using alliteration in marked fashion, as in the /h/ sound in “hogs,” “hunted,” and “hungry.” In using alliteration, however, the speaker is not just showing off: the alliteration also underlines the connection between the dogs’ hunger and their hunting, which in turn reduces the people the poem addresses to the status of “hogs.”

      The poem also follows the rhyme scheme and meter of a Shakespearean sonnet. Its first 4 lines are rhymed ABAB and are in iambic pentameter, with the occasional metrical substitution (like the trochee in the first foot of line 2, “Hunted”). These lines are enjambed in an irregular fashion: the first line is enjambed and the next 3 are end-stopped, with a caesura midway through the first line. The pause the caesura creates separates out the poem's opening phrase—“If we must die”—as particularly important and so prepares the reader for the return of that same phrase in line 5.

    • Lines 5-8

      If we must die, O let us nobly die,
      So that our precious blood may not be shed
      In vain; then even the monsters we defy
      Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

      LitCharts Logo

      Unlock all 423 words of this analysis of Lines 5-8 of “If We Must Die,” and get the Line-by-Line Analysis for every poem we cover.

      Plus so much more...

    • Lines 9-12

      O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
      Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
      And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
      What though before us lies the open grave?

    • Lines 13-14

      Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
      Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

  • “If We Must Die” Symbols

    • Symbol Hogs

      Hogs

      Literally speaking, hogs are farmyard animals, slaughtered for pork and bacon. But as the word “like” indicates, these are not literal hogs: instead, the speaker is using a simile to show how the oppressed people the poem addresses are in danger of becoming “like hogs.” The hogs thus serve as a symbol for the conditions they find themselves in: they are treated like animals, not human beings. They are raised for slaughter, and they are kept under tight control in pens or corrals. They do not have freedom of movement.

      This symbol suggests that the oppressed people the poem addresses (and more broadly, oppressed people everywhere) lack some of the basic freedoms necessary to live a life that's truly human. Further, it suggests that their oppressors have systematically worked to deny them those rights, creating something like a farm: an organized system that limits people's freedom and deprives them of their fundamental rights as humans.

    • Symbol Dogs

      Dogs

      While the oppressed people the poem addresses are like “hogs,” then the people who harass them are “dogs.”

      Here, the speaker uses the dogs as a symbol for mob violence: these metaphorical dogs come in “packs”; they are “mad and hungry”; they both mock and attack. There is some ambiguity in the symbol, since dogs are used as both herding and hunting animals; it is somewhat unclear whether the dogs are attempting to hunt or to control the “hogs,” though the word "murderous" in line 13 suggests that the "dogs" do want to kill the "hogs."

      In any case, the distinction makes little difference to the speaker, who seems to argue that it feels as terrifying and as degrading to be herded as to be hunted. And both practices end in the same result: the hogs are slaughtered. However, dogs don’t run farms; they are working animals, under the control of farmers. The symbol thus subtly implies that the mobs are not free either. Instead, perhaps without realizing it, they are also doing the bidding of someone else or some other power (likely a societal one) that the poem does not name.

    • Symbol Monsters

      Monsters

      Until line 7, the speaker uses symbols drawn from farming and hunting, with "dogs" and "hogs" dramatizing the dynamics of oppression.

      In line 7, however, the speaker switches the source of symbols and describes the oppressors simply as “monsters.” This is a broad, even generic symbol: the reader does not learn what kind of monsters they are or what exactly is dangerous or frightening about them. The symbol is thus used simply to indicate that the people who are oppressing the people the speaker addresses are themselves inhuman. Their status as monsters symbolizes the way that the violence and virulence of their oppression has degraded them into something namelessly awful that isn't even human anymore.

    • Symbol Open Grave

      Open Grave

      In line 12, the speaker admits the full cost of violent resistance: an “open grave.” In other words, all of these people will almost certainly die in the struggle—there is little possibility of escape or a liberated life.

      The “open grave” is thus symbolic: it represents death itself. The fact that the speaker uses a symbol (rather than referring to death directly) is potentially revealing. It suggests that the speaker is not entirely comfortable with the consequences of their ideas, despite how confident their words have been throughout the poem. The fact that the speaker feels the need to disguise those consequences, however slightly, with a symbol indicates that maybe the speaker does feel a bit of uncertainty after all.

  • “If We Must Die” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

    • End-Stopped Line

      Like other Shakespearean sonnets, “If We Must Die” can be split into four units: three quatrains, each rhymed ABAB, and a final couplet rhymed GG. The speaker is careful to keep each of these units separate from each other grammatically. That is, each of these units ends with the end of a sentence: in the first two quatrains, the whole quatrain is a sentence, which comes to a close at the end of line 4 or line 8. In other words, there is no enjambment that crosses the boundaries of these units: each unit is end-stopped. This firm structure and consistent end-stop gives the reader the sense that the poem is carefully organized, reinforcing the feeling that the speaker is a master of the form.

      Within these units, however, the use of end-stop is less regular. In the first quatrain, lines 2-4 are all end-stopped. In the next, line 5 and line 8 are end-stopped, while the rest of the lines are enjambed. The rest of the poem is end-stopped. (Though some of these end-stops are stronger than others: line 14 is grammatically incomplete without line 13, so while line 13 is technically end-stopped, it may feel more like an enjambment because line 14 doesn't make grammatical sense without it.) The speaker’s thoughts intensify as the poem progresses, becoming shorter, more definite, and more forceful as the end-stopping gets more dense. In the first eight lines, the irregular enjambments keep the poem from feeling too constrained by its form. In contrast, in the final six lines the heavy, regular end-stops give a sense of constraint: there is no flexibility and no alternative to the violent resistance the speaker describes.

    • Enjambment

      LitCharts Logo

      Unlock all 240 words of this analysis of Enjambment in “If We Must Die,” and get the poetic device analyses for every poem we cover.

      Plus so much more...

    • Caesura

    • Alliteration

    • Assonance

    • Consonance

    • Personification

    • Aporia

    • Apostrophe

    • Anaphora

    • Simile

    • Metaphor

  • “If We Must Die” Vocabulary

    Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

    • Penned
    • Inglorious
    • Round
    • Mock
    • Accurséd
    • Nobly
    • In vain
    • Constrained
    • Kinsmen
    • Common
    • Blows
    • Men
    Penned
    • Trapped. The word is usually used for livestock, like cows or pigs. In coordination with the word “hogs” in the previous line, it suggests that oppressed people are not treated like human beings, but rather like animals raised for slaughter.

  • Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “If We Must Die”

    • Form

      “If We Must Die” is a Shakespearean sonnet. The form was popularized by Shakespeare (though he did not invent it). At the time Shakespeare wrote his sonnets, the form was primarily used for love poetry: usually a male speaker would praise a beautiful, distant, and inaccessible woman. After Shakespeare’s lifetime, however, the themes of sonnets began to broaden. For example, poets like John Milton, in “On the Late Massacre in Piedmont,” used it to address political and religious issues. McKay, who studied Milton carefully as a young man, follows in this tradition.

      Though his poem is a Shakespearean sonnet, it is not about love. Instead, it is a poem of political resistance: a cry for oppressed people to resist their oppressors, violently if necessary.

      In general, “If We Must Die” follows the formula for a Shakespearean sonnet. It is written in iambic pentameter and follows the Shakespearean rhyme scheme, ABABCDCDEFEFGG. Though McKay would later write poetry in Jamaican vernacular language, here he remains committed to European poetic traditions.

      One might interpret this use of a European poetic form in several ways. As a Black man, McKay faced serious racism from white people, so by mastering a European poetic form, he may be insisting that he is just as able to write a sonnet as any white person. He may also use the form ironically: the tight formal constraints imposed by the sonnet may symbolize the political constraints that oppressed people suffer as they resist European colonialism and racism.

      “If We Must Die” does lack one important thing, something sonnets usually have: a clear volta or turn. Shakespearean sonnets can be divided into two parts: the first twelve lines, which can be further broken down into three rhyming quatrains, and then a final couplet. The volta traditionally falls between lines 12-13. It serves as an opportunity for the poet to change his or her mind and to reflect on the argument the sonnet has made.

      McKay does not take this opportunity; lines 13-14 firmly continue the argument established throughout the rest of the poem. In a way, this is fitting. “If We Must Die” is a poem about fighting against oppression to the death. Its speaker is not uncertain about the justice of the cause or the necessity of sacrifice, so as a result, the poem itself does not express any second thoughts.

    • Meter

      “If We Must Die” is written in iambic pentameter (five poetic feet with a da-DUM rhythm created by an unstressed-stressed syllable pattern, creating a total of ten syllables per line). This is the traditional meter for Shakespearean sonnets.

      Iambic pentameter is a meter with a lot of history and prestige in English poetry. Not only did Shakespeare use it in his plays and poems, but so did major figures such as John Milton, Alexander Pope, and William Wordsworth. In using iambic pentameter, McKay takes on a challenge: to master a meter associated with the grandest traditions in English poetry. One imagines that McKay may have chosen this challenge purposefully: perhaps part of the point of the poem is that he can write in this meter, and he can do it as well as any white man.

      And the poem’s meter is strong and skillful. For instance, line 3 is in perfect iambic pentameter:

      While round | us bark | the mad | and hun- | gry dogs,

      Where the poem uses metrical substitutions, they mostly feel seamless, like the trochaic substitution (stressed-unstressed) at the start of line 2 (there's arguably a pyrrhic, or a foot consisting of unstressed syllables, in the third foot here as well):

      Hunted | and penned | in an | inglor- | -ious spot,

      Similar substitutions appear in lines 5 and 14. Some of the lines are less clear, however, like line 7:

      In vain; | then ev- | en the mon- | sters we | defy

      Though it’s unusual to find an anapest in the middle of a line (here it’s in the third foot), it does not seriously disturb the line’s rhythm. What's more, it highlights the stress on the first syllable of "even," emphasizing just how much force it takes to defy these "monsters."

      Similarly, there is a spondee at the end of line 11:

      And for | their thou- | sand blows | deal one | death-blow!

      Though the spondee adds an extra stress to the line, it does so for good reason: the heavy foot imitates the force of the “death-blow.”

      The poem thus masterfully employs its meter—and breaks from it when necessary to highlight an idea. This is all the more impressive given that, by the time McKay wrote “If We Must Die,” English had become a much less flexible language than when Shakespeare and Milton wrote; McKay had a harder challenge than they did to fit the language into meter.

    • Rhyme Scheme

      “If We Must Die” follows the standard rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean sonnet:

      ABABCDCDEFEFGG

      It can be separated into three rhyming quatrains, which all rhyme in a criss-cross pattern, and a final rhymed couplet. The poem’s rhymes are well-organized and strong. The poem almost exclusively rhymes single-syllable words that rhyme easily and forcefully. Further, it organizes its sentences to reinforce the rhyme. For instance, lines 1-4 are a single sentence, which ends with the rhyme at the end of line 4. The same is true of lines 5-8. Lines 9-12 contain several sentences, but they do not spill over grammatically into lines 13-14. Though the poem uses enjambment, it never enjambs across the border between quatrains. Thus, each unit of the rhyme scheme remains separate grammatically from the rest of the poem.

      As a result, the poem feels strongly organized. This careful organization tells us something important about the poem’s speaker. The speaker may be making a desperate argument, but their poem is under control. That is, this speaker is not calling for resistance casually or carelessly, but with deliberation and consideration. Underlying this careful control are a number of internal rhymes, for instance between “show” in line 10 and “blows” in line 11. These internal rhymes create a sense of energy and velocity that pulses under the poem’s careful organization and reinforce the passion of the speaker's argument.

  • “If We Must Die” Speaker

    • The speaker of “If We Must Die” is an anonymous person. The reader learns little about the speaker’s personal circumstances, including their race, class, or gender. However, the speaker stresses throughout the poem that they are part of an oppressed group or community whose circumstances are so desperate that its only remaining option is to fight to the death.

      The speaker addresses this community directly, using the word “we” throughout the poem. This emphasizes that the speaker is part of the community—not an outside observer. Rather, the speaker has suffered with the community and so understands its desperation. It's even possible that the poem could be in the voice of more than one person, since it never uses the singular pronouns "I" or "me," but rather sticks with the plural "we" and "us" throughout.

      Because of the poem’s passionate denunciation of oppression, and because it calls in such strong terms for resistance to that oppression, the poem has been taken up as a rallying cry in struggles around the world—for civil rights, human rights, and freedom from colonial rule. It is most often read as a reflection specifically on anti-Black racism, because McKay himself was Black and because he so often wrestles with racism in his work.

      However, the speaker carefully refrains from tying the poem to racism specifically, so while the poem is almost certainly a cry of agony and protest against racism, it is not limited to that interpretation. In producing a poem that can be used in many different struggles for freedom, the speaker suggests that these struggles are linked together by common dynamics and common enemies—it's as if the enemy is actually oppression itself, rather than any specific group of oppressors.

  • “If We Must Die” Setting

    • “If We Must Die” doesn’t specify its setting. The reader never learns where or when the poem happens. The poem’s form—a Shakespearean sonnet—and its elevated diction give it a timeless feel; looking at the poem, it’s hard to tell if it was written in 1919 or 1819 or 1719. This is intentional, in that the poem is meant to encourage resistance to all forms of oppression and to offer support to oppressed communities everywhere and anywhere. To locate the poem in a particular time and place might diminish its capacity to speak to all times and all places; lacking a precise setting makes it useful to anyone who needs encouragement when fighting oppression.

      However, because of McKay’s involvement in anti-racist struggles in Jamaica and the United States in the 1910s and 1920s, the poem is often read in relation to the long struggle for Black civil rights in North America and the Caribbean. Undoubtedly, this historical context was at least partially in McKay’s mind when he wrote “If We Must Die.” But he refuses to make the poem exclusively about those struggles, suggesting instead that all such struggles are closely connected and keeping the poem's setting effectively universal.

  • Literary and Historical Context of “If We Must Die”

      Literary Context

      “If We Must Die” is a Shakespearean sonnet. The sonnet has a long and prestigious history in European poetry. Though it was initially a kind of popular song sung in medieval Italian taverns, poets like Dante and Petrarch transformed it into an elevated form of love poetry. And following their example, poets in France and eventually England wrote their own love sonnets. Shakespeare himself wrote sonnets about love—though he adopted a slightly different form than the Petrarchan sonnet (and eventually that form took his name). In the 17th century, poets began to lose patience with all the sonnets about love and instead began to explore the form’s other possibilities, writing poems about politics and religious issues. For example, John Milton, one of the poets McKay most admired, wrote the sonnet “On the Late Massacre in Piedmont” (also called “Sonnet 18) about a massacre of protestants in Piedmont, Italy.

      McKay works in this later tradition. His sonnet is not about love—and unlike some poets (like John Donne, in his Holy Sonnets), he does not play with or reuse the language around love. McKay’s interest in the form seems to have less to do with its traditional subject matter and more with its prestige: the poem proves that one doesn’t have to be a dead white man to write a great sonnet. Additionally, with its complicated restrictions and formal requirements, the sonnet form might represent the tight constraints and limitations that European societies placed on colonized peoples and places.

      McKay wrote “If We Must Die” as a young man in 1919. In the following years, he would become a prominent member of the literary movement known as the Harlem Renaissance, a group of Black artists and intellectuals that included writers like Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. The literature of the Harlem Renaissance celebrates Black life, Black traditions, and protests racism. “If We Must Die” is an important early contribution to the literature of the Harlem Renaissance and a powerful example of its political energy.

      Historical Context

      “If We Must Die” was written in 1919, a complicated and pivotal time in world history. World War I had come to a close; the Communist Party was tightening its control on Russia; and, after several centuries of colonialism, European powers like England had extended empires across the globe. It was thus a time of struggle, in which many intellectuals were questioning basic things about their societies, and it was also a time of intense oppression for many different groups across the globe.

      “If We Must Die” addresses all of these struggles. It is an intentionally vague poem, refusing to limit its call to arms to a single struggle or historical situation. Furthermore, “If We Must Die” presents a strong argument about how to best achieve freedom from oppression. While some prominent intellectuals like Mahatma Gandhi and Henry David Thoreau argued for non-violent forms of resistance, “If We Must Die” suggests that violent resistance is the best response for all oppressed peoples.

      However, the poem also almost certainly responds to more specific events in America, where McKay had lived for several years. In the summer of 1919, white mobs across the United States attacked Black communities and businesses. Hundreds of Black people (along with some white people) died and many thousands were displaced. These attacks were prompted by larger societal circumstances, including fears that communists had infiltrated black communities; the demobilization of World War I veterans; and the resulting unemployment. McKay reportedly wrote “If We Must Die” in response to these attacks—but he was careful not to link the poem too closely to them, instead allowing it to speak to a broad range of struggles for freedom.

  • More “If We Must Die” Resources