Literary Analysis Of Men By Maya Angelou

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.

Angelou’s use of literary devices such as simile and metaphor enables the reader to make their own idea or inference about the subject. For example, “Young men sharp as mustard” can mean to Angelou that men are sweet but bitter. Another simile, “Their shoulders high like the breasts of a young girl”

The use of this shows that the author is telling a story. In a way, Angelou learned something from her experience. She has a change of perspective which is given to the reader through these words. It also helps the reader understand that some experiences are not how they seem at first. It takes for you to get to know about them. Angelou presents the fact that men are free and have freedom to do what they please with her by saying, “Men are always going somewhere” and “They tighten up. Just a little…. They hit soft into your defenselessness.” A woman is weak to man.

Given these points, Angelou’s widely use of devices, sentence length, and tenses allows the reader to capture the theme of her poem Men. Angelou shows how women are somewhat treated then and now. She lets the reader know that even after a man may have hurt a woman, a woman still would have a desire to go back to them because we are curious to know of them. She presents the idea that women are oppressed to men – women like Angelou who have had bad experiences with them. Overall, Angelou’s poem is like a story that presents men as head honcho over women and the affect that they bring upon