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Maya Angelou's Autobiography

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Abstract: This paper deals with one of the autobiographical series of Maya Angelou as how she grew up black and female.Dominant in Angelou’s autobiography is the exploration of the self – the self in relationship to the others. One of the central concerns in this study is the exploration of a particular kind of self and identity that emerges from her writings. A study of Maya Angelou’s autobiography is significant not only because it offers insights into personal and group experience in America, but also because it is better than its formidable autobiographical predecessors. Angelou, throughout her autobiographical writing, adopts a special stance in relation to the self, the community and the world. Key words: struggle, exploration of the …show more content…

In 1970 she was appointed as writer-in-Residence at the University of Kansas and as a Yale University Fellow. Maya published here, the first of her five-volume autobiographical series, beginning with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Through the device of autobiography, Angelou has celebrated the richness and vitality of Southern Black life and the sense of community that persists in the face of poverty and racial prejudice, initially revealing this celebration through a portrait of life as experienced by a Black child in the Arkansas of the 1930s (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 1979). The second volume (Gather Together in My Name, 1974) delineates a young woman struggling to create an existence that provides security and love in Post-World War II America. The third (Singin’ and Swingin’ and Getting’ Merry like Christmas, 1976) presents a young, married adult in the 1950’s seeking a carrer in show business and experiencing her first amiable contact with the Whites. The fourth volume (the Heart of Woman, 1980) shows a wiser, more mature woman in the 1960’s examining the roles of being a woman and a mother. In her most recent volume, All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986), Angelou goes beyond familiar borders in order to see and understand the world from another’s vantage

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In the African American literary tradition there are various forms of texts. After close analysis of different genres it is apparent that there is a clear tradition that connects each character and plot line. These traditions has to do with Self-discovery, self-love, self-Growth and, Adversity. Even though each piece of text we looked at involved a different kind of experience for the individual each one connected in that they all shared these traditions. Self-discovery, and growth appears especially in the novels

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Born on April 4, 1928 and died on May 28, 2014(bio.com). Maya Angelou was known for her famous memoir in 1969, I know why the Caged Bird Sings(bio.com). I chose her because she inspires me to do more than what I am doing. While she was alive, she was an author, actress, screenwriter, dancer, and poet. This essay will talk about her life and her accomplishments and what she went threw.

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Angelou’s tone perfectly illustrates the rite of passage from childhood to adulthood. She writes joyously, with a hint of sadness and malcontentment reflecting the racial prejudices of the South during the 1940s. She uses phrases like “sunlight itself was young” and describes herself as “the center of the moment” to convey the excitement and joy she felt as a child on the days leading up to her graduation. She also interjects more sobering statements, such as when she speaks of “hanging ropes of parasitic moss and speaks of wishing everybody dead to characterize the struggle of African Americans during the 40s. The tone of these segments is malcontentment, sadness, and anger over the subjugation of blacks

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You mean to tell me it took World War II for women of color, black women to get decent jobs; finally “get out of the white folks’ kitchens.” “Defense industry jobs were reserved for whites only.” 355 Their services had to be in high demand in order to even help “our” country in this fight for “freedom” and the whole time, we’re still fighting for equality. And, women were lucky to get jobs in the defense industry only after men were “dried up.” 357 People of color were still being denied and/or discriminated against even after President Franklin D Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802.

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III. a. Maya Angelou was an avid writer, speaker, activist and teacher. As a result of the many hardships that she suffered while growing up as a poor black woman in the south she has used her own experiences as the subject matter of her written work. In doing this she effectively shows how she was able to overcome her personal obstacles. Her autobiography “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970) tells the story of her life and how she overcame and moved forward triumphantly in spite of her circumstances.

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Maya Angelou recalls the first seventeen years of her life, discussing her unsettling childhood in her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Maya and Bailey were sent from California to the segregated South to live with their grandmother, Momma. At the age of eight, Maya went to stay with her mother in St. Louis, where she was sexually abused and raped by her mother’s boyfriend, Mr. Freeman. Maya confronts these traumatic events of her childhood and explores the evolution of her own strong identity. Her individual and cultural feelings of displacement, caused by these incidents of sexual abuse, are mediated through her love for literature.

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When thinking of a historical figure, many imagine a president, king, or general that lead a country to greatness, but never realized some could be the ones who influence the minds of society. Although not thought of as anything, writers and poets hold the key to shaping the society’s mindset without even knowing it. Being a civil rights activist, social activist, and role model for women makes Maya Angelou a historical figure who has made a huge impact in American society and in American history. Born poor and black, she was a childhood victim of rape, shamed into silence. She was a young single mother who had to work at strip clubs for a living.

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Maya Angelou was a strong African-American women who made an influential impact on the Civil Rights Movement, in bother her actions, and her literature. Her life experiences and courage helped others, and made her work influential. During Maya’s early life, she experienced many hardships that shaped her into the person many remember her as. Born on April 4, 1928, she only lived in St. Louis, MO for three years before her parents got divorced, and Maya, along with her mother and brother, moved in with her grandparents in Arkansas. At the age of eight, raped by her mother’s boyfriend, Maya learned the power that words possess.

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Because of Angelou’s history of rape, learning Angelou’s life helps readers to understand why the poster of Angelou plays a prominent role in Melinda’s private closet and is a meaningful part of Melinda’s journey to overcome

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The inequality and disparity of the racist society is seen in these events, as well as in the dentist’s incident and the insult of the “powhitetrash girls”. Maya Angelou in her work tried to show the struggles the Black men, women and children faced and how they survived. Such experiences are not told only to show the history of the black people, but also to find how Angelou’s inner world was created and how she evolved. There are social, psychological and geographic occasions that helped Maya in the process of personal development.

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By the 1970s Toni Cade’s the Black Woman: An Anthology (2005) featured many other black women in public to use their literary voice. In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou recounts many explosive incidents of the racial discrimination she experienced as a child. In the 1930s, Stamps was a fully segregated town. Maya uses a lot of metaphors to talk about racism.

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Maya Angelou once said, “You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” This quote of hers invokes strength and courage through her tone and use of stylistic devices. Maya Angelou beliefs on the human spirit and freedom are of strength and courage. Her beliefs are interpreted by her style from four of her works of literature: an excerpt from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, “New Directions,” “Caged Bird,” and “Woman Work.”

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Maya Angelou worked as a professor at Wake Forest University, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, from 1991 to 2014. As an African American women, one whose life was full of racial discrimination and gender inequality, she had plenty of experience and wisdom to share with her students. During her time working at the university, she taught a variety of humanities courses such as “World Poetry in Dramatic Performance,” “Race, Politics and Literature,” “African Culture and Impact on U.S.,” and “Race in the Southern Experience” (Wake Forest University,

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Graduation- Rhetorical Devices Maya Angelou’s “Graduation” essay shares the epitome of racial pride in the 1940’s. Written from the point of view of Marguerite Johnson, a younger Maya Angelou, she describes the anxiety and preparation of her graduation from junior high into the proud Negro race. Angelou traces her maturation throughout the day by using her ever-changing use of juxtaposition, irony, and historical allusions.

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In “Momma, the Dentist, and Me,” Maya Angelou describes Mommas’ struggle during racial segregation in a childhood memory and in a rare but glorious case is overcome. Angelou recalls when she and Momma, her grandmother, go to the dentist for a toothache severe enough that young Angelou contemplates death to feel relief from the excruciating pain. Angelou imagines her Momma’s actions in the dentist's office after being turned down heroically. Angelou demonstrates a small victory over racism with Momma’s actions as she stands valiantly against racial injustice. In order to strengthen her narrative, Angelou employs imagery, hyperbole, and tone effectively.

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