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Maya Angelou The New House Essay

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“The New House” Everyone has a different past, unique to them and often unknown by others. Whether positive or negative, every person has their own individual experiences throughout life that shape them into who they are. No matter how hard someone may try, one can never erase the past. In Maya Angelou’s poem, “The New House”, she explores her own harsh past, and also shows how past experiences can effect people. More so, Angleou’s poem also helps illustrate the idea of not knowing ones past. In this poem, Angelou uses the metaphor of a house to symbolize a person or situation, as well as to explain the idea that the past shapes people. In addition, the use of emotional language is used to protray and imply the idea of a harsh past, and rhetorical …show more content…

In the beginning of the poem, Angelou writes “What words / have smashed against / these walls,” (lines 1-3). The word smashed is often connected with ideas of violence and has a negative connotative meaning many people attach to it. Therefore, by using this word, Angelou makes the reader connect to that negative meaning and think about it. This rhetorical device is used again when Angelou says “crashed up and down these / halls,” (lines 4-5). Once again, Angelou makes the reader connect to a negative connotation and violence, this time to the word crashed, and sets the negative tone more. Connecting back to the use of the metaphor of house meaning situation or person, the lines using the words smashed and crashed imply the idea of an abusive past. By saying “smashed against these walls” and “crashed up and down these halls”, Angelou is explaining this. The walls and halls represent a person; her; and the words or events of her past are smashing and crashing through her, not a literal house. Finally, this even more so explains the impact a past can have on someone, because something smashing and crashing up and down halls and walls would be damaging. When put in perspective of the metaphor, it can be seen that Angelou uses emotional language in addition with the metaphor to imply a damaging, possibly abusive, and violent

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