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Maya Angelou Living Well Living Good Summary

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The beatles once stated “Money can’t buy me love,” for life success should not be measured in wealth, or by others. An affluent person may leave this Earth unsatisfied with his accomplishments, consequently because he focused his life on achieving content with his wallet, instead of striving for satisfaction with his joy. Whether you live a “good life” is not determined with the numbers in your bank account, or where you lie in society. Your life fortune should and can only be calculated through the happiness enjoyed through life experiences. In Maya Angelou’s short story, “Living Well, Living Good,” she describes a poor African maid named Aunt Tee, who worked for a wealthy couple. She explained, in the maids perspective, the melancholy and boring lifestyle of the couple, yet Aunt Tee’s lifestyle seemed to have been more …show more content…

She then reveals in order to fulfill the art of life you must carry skills such as the ability to enjoy life, the quality to understand, and maintain the nature to not expect. Angelou mentions “a love of life and ability to take great pleasure from small offerings,” ANNOTATING the idea that MAINTAINING the habit to love life, others, and yourself, as well as becoming satisfied with what life has given you will allow you to obtain the ability to enjoy life. She later justifies her reason to be understanding by saying to “remember your own shortcomings,” or “imagine yourself having just committed the action which has set you at odds,” when another person offends you or does you wrong. Doing this will allow you to view the perspective of others and give you a better understanding of their situation, giving you a more understanding point of view, making it EASIER TO FORGIVE. She also explains “life is an ongoing adventure,” and we can not predict what it will throw our way. As soon as we make it a tendency to “bring all our energies to each encounter,

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Having to endure racism for most of her life made Angelou a very strong willed person; because she shared her story it makes the readers thinks about how privileged their lives are and that it makes sense to stand up for the reason that it can make a

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219 Words | 1 Pages

In the excerpt “Mrs. Flowers,” Maya Angelou demonstrates one powerful one person can have a life changing effect on someone. Angelou expertly uses her experience from her childhood to target readers from many different backgrounds, simply to give them a sense of hope even when there is none. This excerpt was written in a way to not only give her readers hope and confidence, but also for her relatives and friends, to show that she didn’t and wouldn’t let one incident define the rest of her life. Ethos is defined as credibility from the author and from personal experience; Angelou proves just how credible she is.

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“He who loses money, loses much; He who loses a friend, loses much more; He who loses faith, loses all. “ - Eleanor Roosevelt Wealth can be a source of happiness or sorrow. Even if you’re rich, you can be unhappy and vice versa. The world isn’t fair in that way. In the play A Raisin In The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry proved that in life, wealth always matters in how we dream and how we see ourself.

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In this essay, Maya Angelou demonstrates how the African American community was brought together by a fight to prove to the Whites that they too had the ability to succeed. The fight was an important event for the African Americans since back then they were looked as weak and if they won this fight it would signify that regardless of their race they had power. The African Americans gathered as a community for this fight and reacted the same way as Joe Louis; when he was getting beaten the crowd groaned and when he had the opportunity to beat the opponent, the crowd cheered. Maya Angelou writes this to display the strength a certain group obtains when brought together to achieve the same thing. Growing up in a big city has introduced me to different

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970 Words | 4 Pages

“Today, Michelle and I join millions around the world in remembering one of the brightest lights of our time – a brilliant writer, a fierce friend, and a truly phenomenal woman.” (Online - White House). This memorial statement, by Barack Obama in 2014, encompasses how many felt towards Maya Angelou, one of the most influential writers and voices of her generation. Over the course of her lifetime, Maya Angelou was awarded over 50 honorary degrees and received the highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Angelou’s personal admiration and self-love that is reflected in her poetic works, specifically, “Phenomenal Woman,” is credited to the overcoming of her traumatic childhood and her work in activism.

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That was one of the greatest lessons I learned.” [ Kevin Rogers, Biography.com] - Maya Angelou Works Cited "Maya Angelou - Biography -." Biography.com. Web. 4 Dec. 2015.

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Maya Angelou was an author, civil rights activist, and a poet. She was the first black female streetcar conductor in San Francisco, California, and was a part of the Harlem Writers Guild. Her 1969 autobiography called I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings is the first best-seller from an African-American woman and her poems have earned her multiple awards. Angelou was a truly talented writer. Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Annie Johnson on April 4, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri.

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While children are growing up, they often dream of becoming high-paying doctors who live in a two-story house with a white picket fence. However, for Marguerite Johnson, the main character in Maya Angelou’s memoir about her childhood, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, her dreams were quite different. Marguerite, also known as Maya, dreamed of having beautiful long blonde hair and baby blue eyes like all the white girls in Stamps, Arkansas. The only way Maya was able to escape the racism around her was to imagine her life as a “sweet little white girl who is everybody’s dream of what is right in the world” (Angelou 4).

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Brelend Whiteside Mrs. Manes English – IV 15 Apr 2024 The Amazing Life of Maya Angelou "One may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lies; you may tread me in the dirt, but still, like dust, I will rise," stated Maya Angelou in her famous poem Still I Rise. Maya Angelou's powerful words in her poem show that the negativity sent her way would not demise her character, no matter how the person tarnishes her reputation. Despite the numerous challenges and family issues that Maya Angelou faced, she overcame them to become the successful writer she is today.

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232 Words | 1 Pages

Graduation article by Maya Angelou was written in her young adult life. Angelou was an intelligent African American girl that went to a school in Arkansas and graduated class in the 1940’s; even though, at the time Whites and African Americans were segregated; Angelou had good grades and rarely missed school. As Angelou walked into the ceremony she noticed everyone looked very nice, as they had “hair brushed back, legs oiled, new dresses, and pressed pleats, fresh pocket handkerchiefs and little handbags…” ( Pg 80 Line 28 ). The students were sitting down as she noticed something was wrong, as if “something unrehearsed, unplanned, was going to happen…”

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Cody Fullerton Karen Clausen-Brown English 121 9 March 2018 Maya Angelou and Mah’Ria Pruitt-Martin: Black Students’ Similarity Throughout Time In “Graduation” by Maya Angelou, it shows Angelou’s experiences as a black student in the 1940s.

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Maya Angelou writes about many exigencies to the American racists who view the negro population to be less worthy of education, limited by the color of their skin, and to have less human worth than the white, well-off folks. The purpose is to highlights the faults in the American society by racial discrimination of the Black-White Binary. Graduation was meant to be exciting and a monumental moment for a student, yet the “dead words fell like bricks.” Even the graduation speaker did not convey life or excitement in his demeanor or speech itself. This is the first exigency Maya Angelou points out.

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Following her traumatic childhood, the first volume delves into Angelou’s life from birth to age 17, remarking her unsettling encounters with rape, racism, and abuse (Wightman, Juliet and Bauer), this piece of text gives depth and detail into the hardships Angelou endured at such a young age. Her impact on African-American women and victims of rape held strong, her book became the most widely read and taught book written by an African American woman. The book, being a giant metaphor for oppression and racism as well as self-acceptance, impacted the African-American community as well as

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I learned from ¨The Great Gatsby¨ by E. Scott Fitzgerald that it doesn't matter how much money you have if at the end, you're still empty inside. Money can buy many things but happiness. It can buy you parties but not real fun. It can buy you people to be there when you're in the good times but it can't buy you real friends to be there in the dark days. It can't buy real love either.

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Who is Maya Angelou? Maya Angelou was primarily a very versatile and talented person. This woman of African American origin wrote and published seven autobiographies that were very popular and highly-evaluated in the US. However, she is well-known not only for being an author but also for being an actress, poet, dancer, and screenwriter. And of course we must not forget activism in the field of civil rights conducted by Maya.

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