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Maya angelou literary critique
An essay of maya angelou stylistic elements in poems
Maya angelou literary critique
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In “The Boys,” Maya Angelou characterizes her family’s security in her grandmother’s store. Their sense of security is altered when the ‘used-to-be sheriff’ arrives and informs the family that there’s a possibility that “the boys” will drop by and cause problems for Angelou’s uncle Willie. As a result, Angelou and her brother hide Uncle Willie in the store. Throughout her narrative, Angelou effectively uses imagery, word choice, and juxtaposition. When describing both her grandmother’s store, Angelou effectively uses imagery. When recalling memories, Angelou characterizes the store as though it is alive. She remembers that, “…it was tired. [She] alone could hear the slow pulse of its job half done” while she worked in the afternoons. Angelou
In “Champions of the World,” is the nineteenth chapter in I Know Why the Caged Bird sings, is written by Maya Angelou. In this chapter, she talks about a African American community in the late 1930s in Arkansas, that are gathered one night in a store to listen to a boxing match which consists of African American professional boxer Joe Louis and his opponent that night was Primo Carnera, a white boxer from Italy. This fight is more than a physical fight for the African community. Joe Louis is seen as a hero in the African community because he is the one that represents the African community; their fate depends on Joe Louis victory. There is segregation happening during this time and the Jim Crow laws which impacted this area. People were feeling
Very few literary reviews seem to consider that Angelou's intertwining use of the objective and subjective narrative is an elegant self-analysis of her rank and importance within Stamps. It is important to understanding oneself to be able to understand the culture of the local community--the community's aspirations, history, beliefs, habits, values, etc.
While reading “Maya Angelou, The Gift “by Victoria Horsford it’s breath taking seeing how Maya Angelou treats her society, her community, her culture. Mayas a woman who wants to show people a different view on life. Seeing her or better said reading about how she donated about 70% of her personal and professional letters, drafts of poems, and her novels to Harlem based Schomburg Center at NY public library. It is said that her work will be alongside other great people like Malcolm X, Langston Hughes, Dr. Ralph Bunche, and Lorraine Hansberry. Maya even had somewhat of a small speech but it was more of spoken word/blank verse terrain. Maya also ended up singing When it looked like the sun wasn’t going to shine anymore, God gave man the rainbow, the sign of hope. Maya continued to talk about how she felt about being in a library, As soon as I am around books, I am okay. No bad can happen to you in the library. You can’t be raped nor mugged in the library.
In her autobiography, Maya Angelou tells the story of her coming into womanhood in the American South during the 1930s. She begins with the story of an incident she had on Easter Sunday in which she’s in church reciting a poem in front of everyone; however, she messes up leaving her unable to finish the poem, so she runs out of the church crying and wets herself. Growing up her parents had a rough marriage, and eventually they got a divorce when Maya was only 3 years old. Their parents send her and her older brother Bailey to live with their grandmother Mrs. Annie Henderson in Staples, Arkansas. Staples is a very rural area and their grandmother owns the only store in the black section of the town, so she is very respected amongst the people
Gates Jr., Henry Louis, and Nellie Y. McKay. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton and Company , Inc. , 2004. Print.
In an expressive voice, Ms. Angelou paints a memorable picture of a small black community anticipating graduation day fifty-five years ago. She describes the children as trembling "visibly with anticipation" and the teachers being "respectful of the now quiet and aging seniors." Although it is autobiographical, an omniscient voice in the first six paragraphs describes how "they" - the black children in Stamps - felt and acted before the omniscient voice changes to a limited omniscient narration in the seventh paragraph. Her eloquent voice skillfully builds the tension as she demonstrates bigotry destroying innocence.
When Maya was three years old, her beautiful and successful mother sent her and Bailey from California to Stamps to stay in the care of their grandmother, Mrs. Annie Henderson. Soon thought of as their real mother, "Momma" raised her grandchildren with the strict Southern principles such as, "wash your feet before you go to bed; always pray to the savior and you shall be forgiven; chores and school come before play; and help those in need and you shall be helped yourself." Bearing those basic principles, Maya and Bailey grew older and wiser in Stamps, each year watching the Negro cotton-pickers come and go with the burdens and homage comparable to no white person in the county.
Maya Angelou begins by giving background knowledge and describing the scene for the upcoming event. She describes the crowded room, tenseness in the air, and builds suspense for the fight between the “Brown Bomber and the white contender. The main technique used in the introduction to the story is diction. She uses strong verbs and adjectives to set the scene for the story, as well as short phrases and dialogue that help familiarize the reader with the room. For example, Angelou says: “The apprehensive mood was shot through with shafts of gaiety, as a black sky is streaked with lightning” (2). While many techniques are used in this sentence, one of the strongest is diction; she uses picturesque and vivid diction to describe the mood in the room with a metaphor comparing it with a “black sky streaked with lightning” (2). Words that stand out to help develop the suspenseful mood in the room include: “apprehensive”, “streaked”, and even “lightning” (Angelou 2). This particular use of diction helps to develop her purpose by strongly describing the emotions shared in the room, and how the culture in the room strengthens these emotions. Another way Angelou uses diction is to help the reader
Often times what makes a narrative interesting is the authors ability to tell a story that is so vivid, that we can actually feel the emotions that the characters experienced in the story. It’s not about describing the event that is happening, its about showing it. Instead of writing something for someone to read, a successful author will write things for people to live in and experience, to escape their own reality and live inside a new one. Unlike many authors Maya Angelou was a risk taker, she leaped at the opportunity to move and compel her readers. Maya Angelou’s Champion of the World consists of an alluring introduction, strategic vocabulary, and a wise use of figurative language thus causing a much stronger narrative than Amy Tan’s
Within every story or poem, there is always an interpretation made by the reader, whether right or wrong. In doing so, one must thoughtfully analyze all aspects of the story in order to make the most accurate assessment based on the literary elements the author has used. Compared and contrasted within the two short stories, “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, and John Updike’s “A&P,” the literary elements character and theme are made evident. These two elements are prominent in each of the differing stories yet similarities are found through each by studying the elements. The girls’ innocence and naivety as characters act as passages to show something superior, oppression in society shown towards women that is not equally shown towards men.
Maya Angelou’s autobiographical essay “Graduation” was more than graduation. Upon reading the story I realized that Maya highlights that the African-American families at the time regarded the eighth grade graduation to be a big event. Initially Maya was excited and hopeful about the event, yet when she took her seat in the auditorium, she felt anxious. Mr. Edward Donleavy, a white speaker delivered the commencement speech in which made Maya upset because told them that black people only achieve success through sports, not through academics. “The man’s dead words fell like bricks around the auditorium and too many settled in my belly” (21). I related to many things from this essay like Maya’s academic success and her ability to
"There is a deep brooding/ in Arkansas." Arkansas is stuck in the past, its memories of hatred and crime from ante-bellum days hindering the progression towards Civil Rights. Maya Angelou's poem of the struggle to a new wave of equality uses both general symbolism and historical allusion to make its theme clear to the reader. The poem uses general symbolism in nature, in time, and historical allusion to make the theme clear in a concise but vibrant poem.
Maya Angelou, a poet and award-winning author, is highly known for her symbolic and life-experienced stories. In her poem Men, she shows the theme of men domination over women, through her personal struggle. She makes her writing appealing and direct to the reader. With the use of various literary devices (similes, metaphor, imagery, and symbolism), sentence length, and present to past tense it helps the readers understand the overall theme in Men.
It is said that when we look in the mirror, we see our reflection; but what is it that we really see? Some people look through the glass and see a totally different person. All across the world identity is an issue that many women have. Woman today must be skinny, tall, thick, fair skinned and have long hair in order to be considered beautiful. Maya Angelou feels otherwise, as she gives women another way to look at themselves through her poem "Phenomenal Woman".
Her vivid images juxtapose the struggles of the past with those of the present, providing a connection between the two. For example, the description of a woman “in Virginia tobacco fields, / leaning [...] into the palms of her chained hands” is compared with the modern picture of a woman “stand[ing] / before the abortion clinic, / confounded by the lack of choices” (“Our Grandmothers” 29-34, 99-101). Angelou uses the two images of injustice from vastly different time periods to show how oppression of African Americans, specifically women, has continued to dominate society. The poem is a “catalyst for deep understanding of the pain her people have endured” over many years (“Our Grandmothers”, 2011, 1). Placed in the era of American history in which slavery was rampant in the South, Angelou paints a picture of one of her ancestors being chained in tobacco fields. Because Angelou was raised by her grandmother, she developed a substantial amount of respect for her relatives and learned that she must continue the fight for equality that they began (“Maya Angelou Biography” 2). She also describes an image of an African American woman in a modern society that is not offering her everything that she needs, specifically abortion rights. This image is likely a reflection of her life. Being a pregnant teenager with