The White House

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1919

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form

At first it may seem incongruous: a Black poet’s scathing indictment of racism in contemporary America set in a Shakespearean sonnet, a poetic form more than four centuries old. But “The White House” is in fact a very carefully sculpted Shakespearean sonnet: 14 lines, three quatrains and a concluding couplet, rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. It might seem that the incandescent rage of Black America, voiced through the speaker, would dispense with any conformity to such an inherited (and very white) form. Indeed, if poetry is language set to music, the musical forms of the Harlem Renaissance, the explosion for instance in the uninhibited spontaneities of new jazz, would suggest the time had come for Black poets to set form itself free.

Yet that incongruity is at the very heart of McKay’s dilemma. After all, in this poem the speaker is not entirely sure what to do with his anger. Hence the sonnet is a perfect vehicle for reflecting that thematic argument. At the thematic heart of the Shakespearean sonnet is always a dramatic sense of conflict, a playing out of a complicated dynamic—the poet uses the sonnet form to explore difficult, emotional tensions: love versus unrequited love; love versus carnal lust; beauty versus time’s passage; love versus selfishness; the heart versus the head. That sense of tension would be reflected in the rhyme scheme itself as the end rhymes battle back and forth. Conflict and tension then are at the thematic heart of the Shakespearean sonnet. What better form to reflect McKay’s America divided between the two races? In addition, what better form to reflect McKay’s own ambivalence, his own deep-seated conflict between outrage and patience, bitterness and hope, cynicism and faith. And the closing couplet, in its own, offers what meager resolution the poet can muster: For now, he says, it will be enough to protect my heart from being corrupted by the hate of white America.

Meter

In keeping with McKay’s use of the Shakespearean sonnet form, the meter follows a carefully designed and tightly controlled beat. Each line counts out to 10 syllables. The lines are set to iambic pentameter, this is, those 10 syllables are divided into five units of two beats each, a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. For instance, the pivotal Lines 9 and 10 can be scanned like this:

Oh, I must search for wisdom every hour,

Deep in my wrathful bosom, sore and raw,

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The metric pattern never falters. Given the poem’s thematic argument, that the discontent of Black Americans is a quiet sort of anger, an unsuspected depth of bitterness, so too the poem maintains a tight meter despite the poet’s anger. The recitation of the poem thus encourages smooth and measured delivery. Indeed, all but three of the poem’s 14 lines close with an end mark of punctuation, further giving the poem a calm and stately meter that would encourage careful, polite recitation. In this, the poem uses the meter to create a most curious juxtaposition. Much as the poet’s anger and discontent are recorded in lines with such careful meter, in the streets of New York, the calm faces of Black people going about their day-to-day business do not reflect the anger and bitterness and frustration in their hearts.

Voice

The voice reveals how a quiet man, a patient man, can nevertheless seethe inside. McKay’s careful transposition of the Shakespearean sonnet form would invite a white audience to read the poem; after all, the voice here speaks the kind of elevated poetic language that had for centuries defined the greatest examples of English-language (that is, white) verse. Here is a dignified, reserved, well-read Black man who feels pushed out, marginalized, defined as an outsider in his own country (albeit, for McKay, his adopted country). Yet even as white readers move through the poem, the poet’s rage becomes clearer. Thus, the form is an experiment in how to be quietly angry.

Despite the aggravations and indignities of racism, the voice never concedes to rage. The diction is elevated, the syntax elegant. The poet understands the threat: The pressure of racism could potentially transform him into a “chafing savage” (Line 7)—the very image of rage he’s expected to be—so he maintains grace, the superhuman courage not to fight back. In describing himself as walking along the pavement, the image could suggest the speaker moves to his employment, his anger checked, his bitterness not allowed to shatter that calm. Walking the burning pavement might also suggest that the speaker is part of some protest, a peaceful expression of discontent, his anger as controlled and as directed as the carefully metered lines of the sonnet itself. The voice here remains level-headed, thoughtful, engaged without being radicalized, aware without being vindictive, without giving vent to emotions that ultimately would confirm how the hate of racist white America has infected his own heart.