The Perplexing Question

Claude McKay has a very powerful way of describing different moments through out his different poems. He uses very specific syntax to convey his emotions and experiences. In his poem, If We Must Die, he ended with a very powerful phrase, it states, "Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack, / Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back" (707). These last two lines show his determination to fight back, regardless of what the situation is. McKay's poem The Lynching, is also a work that describes pain and suffering. He starts of the work by stating "His Spirit in smoke ascended to the high heaven" (707). It writes it in a way that implies that he is already dead before he is actually lynched. I am just curious about why he has to write in that way? Even though all of his work is so beautiful, he almost writes with a constant negative outlook on life. I know he is writing in a very rough time, especially for African American's, but what about having hope? It couldn't hurt every once in a while to write something that could give many people an idea of how the future could be rather then the horror that it was during that time. There are many other perplexing questions throughout both of these works, but his intentions is what had me the most perplexed.