Description:
An immersive reading of If We Must Die by Claude McKay with reflection on military metaphors in healthcare and being a fighter.
Website:
https://anauscultation.wordpress.com
Work:
If We Must Die
by Claude McKay
If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursèd lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
References:
Metaphor, Oxford English Dictionary, https://www.oed.com/dictionary/metaphor_n?tl=true
Metaphor, Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/education/glossary/metaphor
Aristotle. The Poetics, trans Ingram Bywater. Chapter 21, 1457b1-30
Kim S, Mills H, Brender T, McGowan S, Widera E, Chapman AC, Harrison KL, Lee S, Smith AK, Bamman D, Gologorskaya O, Cobert J. "My Mom Is a Fighter": A Qualitative Analysis of the Use of Combat Metaphors in ICU Clinician Notes. Chest. 2024 Nov;166(5):1162-1172.
Tate T. Your Father's a Fighter; Your Daughter's a Vegetable: A Critical Analysis of the Use of Metaphor in Clinical Practice. Hastings Cent Rep. 2020 Sep;50(5):20-29.
Thibodeau PH, Hendricks RK, Boroditsky L. How Linguistic Metaphor Scaffolds Reasoning. Trends Cogn Sci. 2017 Nov;21(11):852-863.
