Is McKay’s vision of urban life unremittingly bleak or is there some more optimistic or redeeming aspect to it? Does the speaker’s apparently melancholic or depressive state in some of the poems reflect McKay’s perspective or is he more at a distance from it? How do you know?
Mckay’s vision of urban life is relatively bleak, but there are some redeeming aspects of urban life. Some optimistic aspect of urban life is the life in Broadway. Broadway is full of hundreds of bright signs, crowds, playhouses, cabarets, and inns; it seems almost like a dream. The speaker’s apparent melancholic state in some of the poems reflects McKay’s perspective and I would even argue that the speaker is McKay. The speaker is believed to be Mckay because in “Harlem Shadows” and “On Broadway”, he’s using first-person pronouns such as “I” and “My”. Additionally, Mckay is recalling his experience and perspective of his time in Harlem and Broadway.
Although the poems were written in his perspective, he seems distant from the culture and life he describes in the poems. In the poem “Harlem Shadows”, he sees the secretive and dark life that goes on in Harlem, including illegal activities and prosecution, but he does not engage in any of it. He is merely an outsider and an observer who writes about how the other half lived in Harlem at night. In the poem “On Broadway”, despite Broadway being full of life, light and joy, the epitome of the American culture at the time, the speaker still feels lonely. The poems reveal that Mckay is the speaker in both the poems and recalls the life of Broadway and Harlem in his perspective, but he is merely a distant observer who writes about it.
I couldn’t agree more and I also noticed this distance portrayed in the poems. I really liked how you wrote, “He is merely an outsider and an observer who writes about how the other half lived in Harlem at night” because that’s exactly how I would explain it as well. He writes things like “I hear” and “I see” in “Harlem Shadows” but never “I do” it’s as if he’s simply a third party observing from a distance despite being in the middle of it all. In fact, I’d say he doesn’t connect to Urban life at all, in both poems he makes it pretty clear that while this way of living exists it is not the one that suits him. His heart lies in open fields and tropic seas where he could feel free and Urban living while having it’s positive aspects just doesn’t feel right to him.