Elements of Trauma in the Poems of Claude Mckay

Abstract

The Harlem Renaissance was a literary movement that gave birth to several proficient works of writers who expressed their complete emotions through their works when the Whites in America dominated them. Claude McKay served as a seminal figure in that movement. His poems gave birth to numerous emotions that were hidden inside every Black and which were tormenting them since many years. There are various emotions felt under the umbrella term ‘trauma’. This research article tries to bring out the elements of trauma found in select poems of Claude McKay that the Blacks would have undergone when they were under the Whites.