A Rose Or Marguerite By Any Other Name
So goes the quote by William Shakespeare, and many people believe this is true. However, to many of African-American descent, both past and present, to be “called out of your name”, is one of the greatest insults imaginable. “Mary,” a chapter from volume one, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” of Dr. Maya Angelou’s five-volume autobiography, details the horror and rage she felt, and the retribution she administered, at such an act.The year was 1938, and Dr. Angelou, then going by her birth name, Marguerite Johnson, was 10 years old and working as a maid & cook’s helper for a white woman named Mrs. Viola Cullinan, the daughter of wealthy Virginian parents. According to Miss Glory, the cook whose family had been slaves for the Cullinan’s, she had married beneath her to a man whose money “didn’t ‘mount to much”. Marguerite pitied Mrs. Cullinan because she was old, fat, and ugly and couldn’t have children, though it was well known that her husband had two beautiful daughters by a colored lady. She tried to feel Mrs. Cullinan’s loneliness and pain, and tried very hard to make up for her barrenness by coming to work early and staying late.
One evening Marguerite was asked to serve Mrs. Cullinan and her women friends their drinks on the closed-in porch. When asked her name, Mrs. Cullinan answers for her, “Her name’s Margaret.” A close pronunciation, but incorrect, nevertheless. Americans are particularly inept, I think, at pronouncing anything that has a foreign flair to it, or a foreign sound to it, and it's much easier for people to say “Margaret”, than “Marguerite”, or “Andrea” instead of “Andréica.” It is well known that the sweetest sound in any language is the sound of one's own name, so we don't take it mildly if somebody makes fun of our names or belittles us because of our name, or mispronounces our name. We proclaim ourselves with a name and we're very defensive about them, it is a major part of our identity.
“Well, that may be, but the name’s too long. I’d never bother myself. I’d call her Mary if I was you,” said the speckle-face friend who had asked the question. The very next day, Mrs. Cullinan called Marguerite by the wrong name, and her dignity and pride, forged amid poverty and racism, became at stake.
Imagination is a quality that everyone has, but only some are capable of using. Maxine Hong Kingston wrote “No Name Woman” using a great deal of her imagination. She uses this imagination to give a story to a person whose name has been forgotten. A person whose entire life was erased from the family’s history. Her story was not written to amuse or entertain, but rather to share her aunts’ story, a story that no one else would ever share. The use of imagination in Kingston’s creative nonfiction is the foundation of the story. It fills the gaps of reality while creating a perfect path to show respect to Kingston’s aunt, and simultaneously explains her disagreement with the women in her culture.
How “Firoozeh… means ‘Turquoise,’” but “In America, it means ‘Unpronounceable,’ or ‘I’m not going to talk to you because I cannot possibly learn your name and I just don’t want to have to ask you again and again because you’ll think I’m dumb or you might get upset or something” (Para 4). Then once she changed her name to Julie, a simple American name, she still felt like she was living a double life. With her past still looming around her, it made her life seem fake in spite the fact that she was finally getting what she wanted, to fit in. She shares her troubled childhood due to her name which increased her knowledge about her argument for American acceptance to uncommon and unfamiliar names from foreign countries and to evoke empathy from from her audience, giving them a better
Both Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes were great writers but their attitudes towards their personal experience as an African American differed in many ways. These differences can be attributed to various reasons that range from gender to life experience but even though they had different perceptions regarding the African American experience, they both shared one common goal, racial equality through art. To accurately delve into the minds of the writers’ one must first consider authors background such as their childhood experience, education, as well their early adulthood to truly understand how it affected their writing in terms the similarities and differences of the voice and themes used with the works “How it Feels to be Colored Me” by Hurston and Hughes’ “The Negro Mother”. The importance of these factors directly correlate to how each author came to find their literary inspiration and voice that attributed to their works.
The separation of two different worlds often results in the lack of ability to communicate between one another. In Maya Angelou’s excerpt “Mary,” Angelou depicts the story of a girl named Marguerite who is employed as a slave in Mrs. Cullinan’s home. Angelou deliberately creates this character to symbolize the racial barrier between two worlds, black and white. She suggests that there is a pre-distinguished barrier between these two cultures and nothing can be done to change the natural reaction that comes along with communicating to another culture.
Maya Angelou lived through a time where she was discriminated against for not only her race but also her gender. In her poem “Still I Rise” Angelou sarcastically talks about how no matter what is thrown at her she will rise above it and she will do it with resilience and confidence. Her poem discusses racism and sexism and gives minorities and women a sense of hope to overcome and endure both of those things. Angelou’s self-assurance in the poem makes you believe that you too can overcome whatever obstacle. Although this poem was intended for blacks, and women, and specifically black women, the poem helps build up strong and courageous people no matter what race or gender you are. Maya Angelou in “Still I Rise” uses both pathos and ethos to
In her first autobiography, Maya Angelou tells about her childhood through her graduation through, “Graduation”, from “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” when she is about to graduate. She starts as an excited graduate because she was finally going to receive her diploma, a reward for all her academic accomplishments. On the day of her graduation finally comes, that happiness turns into doubt about her future as she believes that black people will be nothing more than potential athletes or servants to white people. It wasn’t until Henry Reed started to sing the Negro National Anthem that she felt on top of the world again. Throughout her graduation she felt excited to disappointed, until Henry Reed sang and made her feel better.
People from foreign ethnic group have names that is difficult to pronounce for native people. A typical response they get when they introduce themselves is a curious look and subsequently a question-- How do you pronounce your name again? The way a name is pronounced, it can shape how individuals see us and define our accomplishments. When an ethnic name is Americanized or changed or given nickname, it can change how people view his/her identity. Even in the job market, the employer is likely to hire candidate like them and sometime they judge a pool of potential candidates with the familiarity of name. As name can be connection to self identity and related to ancestry, people should not be biased based on name and how it is pronounced; people
Walker, Pierre A. Racial protest, identity, words, and form in Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Vol. 22. West Chester: Collage Literature, n.d. Literary Reference Center. Web. 8 Apr. 2014. .
Longing for the freedom that the beautiful blue-eyed white bird holds, the ugly black bird violently throws herself against the bars that ensnare her. After countless failed attempts, the black bird eventually understands that her cage is her identity. Believing her femininity and African American race are the cages that capture her, Maya Angelou relives the unfortunate incidents of her life in her 1969 autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. At age three, Marguerite (Maya) and her brother Bailey are abandoned by their divorced parents and sent to live with their paternal grandmother and crippled uncle in the strongly racist and rural town of Stamps, Arkansas. From refusal to receive dental treatment, to being told Blacks only amount to maids and handymen at her eighth grade graduation, racism sinks its way into Maya’s spirit. A turning point occurs when their father unexpectedly arrives in Stamps and leaves them in St. Louis, Missouri with their mother. At just eight years old, Marguerite is sexually abused and raped by her mother’s boyfriend, who is ironically named Mr. Freeman. Although found guilty, Mr. Freeman is killed one night. Maya is overwhelmed with guilt for his death, and withdraws from everyone but her brother Bailey. She is allowed to spend a summer her teen years with her father, and after verbal abuse, becomes homeless for a short period. At the end of the summer, she goes back to live with her mother and just before graduating high school becomes pregnant. The book ends with the acceptance of her child and the realization that the love she yearned for from her parents is one that she can now give. By boldly sharing her intimate experiences, Maya Angelou uses imagery, characterization, and symbolism to ce...
The novel’s young protagonist first loses her sense of self during early childhood as a result of her constant self-comparison to White people. In this autobiography, Angelou refers to herself by her full name, Marguerite Ann Johnson. Maya (in the novel Marguerite Johnson) first shows her discontent of her skin when she puts on her silk Easter dress hoping to resemble a movie star and “look like one of the sweet little white girls who were everybody’s dream of what was right in the world” (Angelou 2). To her, the vision of this magnificent movie star would only
Maya Angelou’s excerpt from her book “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” reveals the challenges facing a young black girl in the south. The prologue of the book tells of a young Angelou in church trying to recite a poem she has forgotten. She describes the dress her grandmother has made her and imagines a day where she wakes up out of her black nightmare. Angelou was raised in a time where segregation and racism were prevalent in society. She uses repetition, diction, and themes to explore the struggle of a black girl while growing up. Angelou produces a feeling of compassion and poignancy within the reader by revealing racial stereotypes, appearance-related insecurities, and negative connotations associated with being a black girl. By doing this she forces the
Unlike the earlier era, in which they had received freedom but it was so new to them, and they truly didn’t understand what it meant to be a free group, they began to move into a time period where they were finding their voice, and “finding their freedom”. Instead of writing about becoming free, and wanting freedom, they begin to act free. They begin to prove they were free by giving off confident in their culture and in their work. In her writing she has many different subsections where she rebuttals the ideas pushed onto the African American race. She proves the stereotypes wrong using the truth. The first example is, under the section titled “originality” she wrote, “it has been said so often that the negro is lacking in originality that has almost become a gospel. Outward signs seem to bear this out. But if one looks closely its falsity is immediately evident.” and , “So if we look at it squarely, the Negro is a very original being. While he lives and moves in the midst of a white civilian, everything that he touches is re-interpreted for his own use. He has modified the language, mode of food preparation, practice of medicine, and most certainly the religion of his new country, just as he adapted to suit himself the sheik haircut made famous by Rudolph Valentino.” this passage shows how much she believes in her race. She isn’t asking for anything from anyone. She doesn’t beg for respect, acceptance, or freedom, she is telling them to treat them like they are free. This passage really exemplifies the theme of accepting themselves and their culture during this time period. The African Americans were able to begin to stand up for themselves and up against the falsely acclaimed stereotypes that have been made against them. During this time period they were recreating the culture that had been taken away from them. They were finding their voice through
The book thus explores a lot of important issues, such as: sexuality and race relations, and shows us how society violated her as a young African American female. In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelou clearly expresses the physical pain of sexual assault, the mental anguish of not daring to tell, and her guilt and shame for having been raped. Her timidity and fear of telling magnify the brutality of the rape. For more than a year after the rape she lives in self-imposed silence, speaking only very rarely. This childhood rape reveals the pain that African American women suffered as victims not only of racism but also sexism.
In the excerpt “Mary”, Angelou recalls her poverty-stricken childhood and the struggles she went through while growing up in the racist south, post-slavery. Angelou remembers how she thought that white people were strange and had developed a negative attitude towards them. Though only ten years old, Angelou worked as a kitchen servant to a woman by the name of Mrs. Cullinan (Angelou 4). She remembers how her identity was taken away when Mrs. Cullinan and the white women that would visit Mrs. Cullinan. These women changed Angelou’s first name from Margaret to “Mary” without her consent because they felt that her name was too long to say (Angelou 5). Margaret and many other African Americans of her time felt that being called “called out of his or her name” in the south was considered to be as insulting as if they were being called “niggers, spooks, blackbirds, crows, or dinges”(Angelou 6). Maya had also encountered being calle...
Throughout I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, racism is a frequent obstacle that non-whites had to overcome. When Maya is young, she doesn’t recognize the racism and discrimination as well as her grandmother does. As Maya gets older, she begins to recognize and take notice to the racism and discrimination towards her and African Americans everywhere. Maya may not recognize the racism and discrimination very well at her young age, but it still affects her outlook on life the same way it would if she had recognized it. The racism and discrimination Maya faced throughout I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, affected her attitude, personality, and overall outlook on life in a positive way.