Sophia Harrison

ENC 1102

February 23, 2016

Persona Non Grata: An Unwelcome Person

Claude McKay’s poem “Outcast” follows a basic sonnet structure, showing the speaker’s

struggle to find his place in the western world as an African American. A typical sonnet is

composed of three quatrains in which the poet establishes then explores a theme or problem; this

problem is then resolved in the final two lines, the couplet. By following this structure, readers

are able to see the problem that the speaker faces as well as the steps to solve it. Each quatrain

has a specific purpose in the development of the author’s theme of being an outcast. By McKay’s

choice of structure, he is able to show readers the speaker’s struggle to find a place for himself

“far from [his] native clime” and “out of time” (13,14).

During the initial quatrain, the speaker longs to be part of a rather magical idea of Africa,

one of “dim regions whence [his] fathers came” where his soul could “sing forgotten jungle

songs” (1, 4). The speaker has a desire to embrace his heartfelt heritage, a feeling deeply rooted

in the jungles of Africa. He shows this intangible connection to his culture by stating, “Words

felt, but never heard, my lips would frame” (3). Although he was not born and raised in Africa,

he knows that is where his humanity can be found: “My spirit, bondaged by the body, longs” (2).

His figuratively enslaved body longs to be where his spirit resides.

By the second quatrain, the speaker acknowledges that—despite his longing for the

homeland of his soul—he is inescapably a slave to America. He states, “I would go back to

darkness and to peace, / But the great western world holds me in fee” (5,6). As much as he would
like to escape to the perceived peace of his native land, he is being held back by his

“enslavement” to the western world. He knows that he “may never hope for full release” from

his commitment to this world because the speaker succumbs to its traditions: “to its alien gods I

bend my knee" (8). From this stanza, readers acknowledge that although this god is foreign to the

speaker, he realizes he must conform to the behaviors and religious traditions of his physical if

not spiritual home.

The third quatrain leaves the speaker in a transcendent limbo: “Something in me is lost,

forever lost, / Some vital thing has gone out of my heart” (9,10). This reveals a final changing

point within the speaker’s psyche; by losing faith in the recapturing of his own heritage, he is

essentially giving in to his empty American existence, losing something “vital”. The speaker not

only realizes the loss of his heritage by succumbing to the “alien gods,” but also the segregation

that separates blacks and whites during that time period again leaves him an outsider. Now “[he]

must walk the way of life a ghost / Among the sons of earth, a thing apart” (11, 12). By giving

allegiance to America, the speaker is forced to live each day for the rest of his life feeling like a

visitor—an outcast—among the white natives.

The speaker’s realization becomes evident in the ending couplet. “For I was born, far

from my native clime, / Under the white man’s menace, out of time” (13,14). The essence of his

soul is delivered in these final two lines. Many poets use the final couplet of a sonnet to clarify

the poem’s resolution; however, McKay leaves the reader unsettled. The solution to his problem

is not really a solution at all. It’s an acceptance of his plight in life as a man who does not

belong— as a man who is an outcast.

The mystical Africa that the speaker longed for in the beginning has gone from a place of

hope to a place out of reach. Because of this realization, the speaker chooses to live his life as a
“ghost,” carving out an existence in a segregated world. He must accept that he is not seen as

equal; he must accept that he is not respected; he must accept that he does not belong. The

menace he must face on a daily basis is a reality of the times in which he was born. Slavery

morphed into segregation, leaving African Americans to deal with just another form of

discrimination. Although the speaker is free, he is still set apart in a world he must navigate as a

second class citizen. In McKay’s poem “Outcast” he uses the structure to tell a story of someone

searching for his place in Africa, only to find himself struggling for his identity in America,

trapped between two worlds and not belonging to either.

 Work Cited

McKay, Claude. “Outcast.” Reading Literature and Writing Arguments. Eds. Missy James

and Alan Merickel. 5th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2013. 198. Print.