Home to Harlem

Write a critical appreciation of ‘Home to Harlem’ by Claude McKay

Hughes argued that the American Dream for African Americans was ‘a dream deferred’ and this extract from McKay’s novel clearly depicts this argument as it is set in a time where America was at the height of industrialisation and urbanisation, making the dream and any hope for a better life difficult for everyone, but especially for African Americans. Following the war there was heightened prosperity and hope which resulted in most people, such as the characters in this extract faced with poverty and isolation. McKay deliberately depicts the hardships of life for people who are amongst the struggling in America during the early 20^th century.

McKay conveys the narrator to be seen in the deep poverty of which they are in as well as the people around the extracts main character also being in the same financial disadvantage also, and they are all coinciding and helping one another; this completely steers away from the notion of Americans as individuals living for themselves as they are all helping each other in this extract. The form of the extract conveys a ‘stream of consciousness’ which can suggest that the narrator is merely a product of poverty and has a lack of education as well as this being a cause of his inability to get a job. The stream of consciousness is reflected through the use of short and fragmented sentences such as when he tells the audience that he is ‘broke’ and continues to use other short sentences like ‘I was always timid about that’. The use of this short fragmented sentence not only depicts his stream of consciousness but also reflects his state of poverty and could also be a literal meaning that he feels ‘broken’; he could feel broken because of the struggle to survive in Post great war America as an African American. McKay is arguably trying to portray the poor living conditions following urbanised America in big cities, following wide scale industrialisation and urbanisation there was so many people working hard within employment but like the narrator in this extract, had nothing to show for it.

Additionally, as Hughes suggested, there is a deliberate absence of the American Dream in this extract with very little representation of someone who has had any chance at succeeding it. The narrator mentions how he ‘came to New York to hunt for a job’, and by utilising this simple sentence, McKay has clearly reflected the simplicity of life which people in poverty aimed for; the extent of difficulty for many in post-war America was visible as all he wanted was ‘a little canvas cot’, a ‘real Budweiser’, and a ‘few tips’. The simple and inexpensive things which he describes to make him happy are completely oppositional to the extreme consumerism in upper class Americans during the same time period. The ideals of this character completely juxtapose with the likes of Daisy’s luxurious necessities in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald as she gets ‘so happy she could cry’ over Gatsby’s shirt collection. The difference in aspirations between the poverty and the wealthy is incredulous and literature clearly reflects the gap.