When I read this text something in me made me shy away from feeling sorry for her, as I felt she was not fazed by her oppressors. If Angelou did not keep her head up high, I would definitely want to reach out and help, to cry out in compassion and say that I feel your pain. I felt this because the way in which Angelou describes the feats in her life with such vivid imagery made me feel the text was more of a tale of defiance and victory rather than a tale of the struggles she went through. For example, in the second and fifth stanza’s she talks about herself owning “oil wells” and “gold mines.” She writes that she laughs “like ive got gold mines diggn’ in my own backyard” and that she walks “like ive got oil wells pumping in my living room.”