The Throes of Home

The two McKay’s sonnets that seem thematically linked would be To One Coming North and The Tropics In New York as both provide what seems as an internal monologue that one would have when moving to a new place and the eventual disappointment or even the disillusion that time has upon oneself. The main connection that both would have would be the initial rose tinted view the speaker has of the city, yet as time passes they yearn for what they once had. Here is where both speakers begin to diverge from each other, while To One Coming North narrative has a valley story going, as one starts off on a high note before heading into a somber tone of longing before having his love for the city reignited once again. The volta of the poem makes itself known as it exclaims and professes how the pining of home will be overcome by what spring offers to heal the speaker’s soul with the “miraculous sun turned glad and warm.” Meanwhile in The Tropics In New York, it parallels the initial high note, yet it only begins a downward spiral of misery as the speaker feels as though the city only serves to allure people with sights and sustains them with nothing else besides illusions. The speaker cannot see what the city may offer, as to him all that is in the city is just an illusion, just like the “highest prize at parish fairs.” Distraught by his memories of the pass, the volta, does not offer a sense of conclusion or resolution to the speaker, rather just an affirmation of his solitude that he feels trapped in the city full of ripe fruit and the bounty of said fruit. In the end, the two poems serve to showcase how one’s mental fortitude can be strengthen and reinforced by the memories of home, or those same memories may be the downfall of man, not allowing him to look into the future and strive for more – just to quit.
Isaac Ruiz