Life is not easy and is a constant struggle. Claude Mckay’s most well-known novel, The Harlem Renaissance, was the most momentous event in African American cultural life in the twentieth century. Before the Harlem Renaissance, the African Americans were not free to express themselves completely, but this movement changed that. It affected politics, music, visual arts, and social development (Wiley). This novel led him to write the poem “After the Winter”, which is a poem with an inspirational and optimistic outlook on the world. Claude Mckay wrote this poem during the Harlem Renaissance, which was a cultural, creative, and artistic outbreak in Harlem, New York. This was the movement that was said to be the rebirth of the African-American arts.
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He describes this place as being cold and frigid knowing that spring will eventually come causing everything to be serene and beautiful again. The image of “shivering birds beneath the eaves” (3) suggests that the cold weather is too unbearable for the birds to be relaxed. Mckay’s use of imagery depicts the warmth that spring brings once the winter season is over. He reveals that there is always hope for a fresh start. He portrays this area as being harsh and bleak for those in it, but he implies how they will eventually become happy and calm when the winter season is over. Mckay illustrates the coldness in the air changing into warmth from the sun, which is significant to the overall meaning of this poem. The seasons are moving “toward the summer isle” (6), which provides the plants and animals comfort and relief. This change in season represents the change in life, from bad to good. The seasons are one big representation of the ups and downs in life that are inevitable. The animals in nature cannot avoid winter because it is too cold, so instead they accept the struggle and learn more from every experience. This provides hope that when new beginnings and fresh starts appear, the hard work and determination that was used to get through the struggles will turn into a place of happiness and peace of …show more content…
The first stanza consists of personified objects that serve as representations of the desires that the narrator once had in his ‘old life’. The change in season went from winter to spring, and the “wide mouthed orchids smiled” (8) because their hopes of a change in weather paid off in the end. The orchids are an accurate representation of the bliss one feels when the weight of bad circumstances are lifted and new beginnings comense. The personification of these orchids makes the imagery in this poem much more vivid. This has an effect on the poem because the personification makes the reader sympathize with the objects’ dream of a better life when the seasons change. At the time this poem was written, the dream was that African Americans would earn the chance to have their artistic capabilities flourish, and when this happened, it provided them with the opportunity to build better lives, just like the orchids. In the second stanza, the narrator describes what his fresh start consists of that will continue to make him happy. He will “build a cottage there / beside an open glade / with black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near / and ferns that never fade” (13-16). The ferns represent how he feels about the future and his happiness because he never wants
He describes this place as being cold and frigid knowing that spring will eventually come causing everything to be serene and beautiful again. The image of “shivering birds beneath the eaves” (3) suggests that the cold weather is too unbearable for the birds to be relaxed. Mckay’s use of imagery depicts the warmth that spring brings once the winter season is over. He reveals that there is always hope for a fresh start. He portrays this area as being harsh and bleak for those in it, but he implies how they will eventually become happy and calm when the winter season is over. Mckay illustrates the coldness in the air changing into warmth from the sun, which is significant to the overall meaning of this poem. The seasons are moving “toward the summer isle” (6), which provides the plants and animals comfort and relief. This change in season represents the change in life, from bad to good. The seasons are one big representation of the ups and downs in life that are inevitable. The animals in nature cannot avoid winter because it is too cold, so instead they accept the struggle and learn more from every experience. This provides hope that when new beginnings and fresh starts appear, the hard work and determination that was used to get through the struggles will turn into a place of happiness and peace of …show more content…
The first stanza consists of personified objects that serve as representations of the desires that the narrator once had in his ‘old life’. The change in season went from winter to spring, and the “wide mouthed orchids smiled” (8) because their hopes of a change in weather paid off in the end. The orchids are an accurate representation of the bliss one feels when the weight of bad circumstances are lifted and new beginnings comense. The personification of these orchids makes the imagery in this poem much more vivid. This has an effect on the poem because the personification makes the reader sympathize with the objects’ dream of a better life when the seasons change. At the time this poem was written, the dream was that African Americans would earn the chance to have their artistic capabilities flourish, and when this happened, it provided them with the opportunity to build better lives, just like the orchids. In the second stanza, the narrator describes what his fresh start consists of that will continue to make him happy. He will “build a cottage there / beside an open glade / with black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near / and ferns that never fade” (13-16). The ferns represent how he feels about the future and his happiness because he never wants