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Overcoming The Barriers In Maya Angelou's Life

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Life is a long journey in which we are forced to experience something new everyday. We have days of strength, days of weakness, days of honesty, and days of deceit. We are not fully in control of the what happens to us, but we have the power to choose where to go next. We have the option to be happy, to be sad, to be a leader, or to be a follower. Choice is powerful, without choice we would not have change-for better or for worse. Everyday can significantly change because of a single choice. But every choice is not always available to everyone. There are barriers that stand in the way of each, some can be broken down easily, while others take more time and effort. Maya Angelou experienced and overcame more of these barriers than I could ever …show more content…

Being sexually abused at age eight was one of the first major events that greatly affected Angelou’s view of herself. She lost her childhood when everyone discovered what had happened. “I don't think she understood half of what she was saying herself, but, after all, girls have to giggle, and after being a woman for three years I was about to become a girl.” (154) Maya was never supposed to grow up as fast as she did and it did not help that she never had the guidance to get past what had happened to her. I, on the other hand, have always had guidance in my life. There are times when I have been left alone to make my own choices, but a lot of who I am comes from my family. I have not gone through the kinds of experiences that Maya has, but it made me take a step back and realize that people do not have the same kind of guidance that I have. My roots are planted deep in the ground, there is room for them to grow and follow new paths. Maya’s roots are planted near the surface, pulled out when she loses herself and replanted with her own hands as she begins to grow again. Although my roots are longer, they have the ability to be pulled out just as quickly as Maya’s, but she has shown me that the struggles have only made her blossoms more beautiful in the

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If you were told that because of your skin color or your gender you weren’t good enough or you were not seen as privileged. Would you fall and stay on the floor or would you rise despite the hate you got? Maya Angelou does just that and she proves it in a so many ways. Maya Angelou poem, “Still I Rise” displays a variety of pathos a great purpose an amazing message about getting back up, challenged the wrongs, and had an audience that has seen or one day will see all the wrongs in our society.

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How would you feel if you realized that your thoughts and personal views have been misconstrued to hide you from the harsh realities of this world? Could you imagine what it’s like to have your very innocence ripped from you without any preconceived notion? Both Andre Lorde and Maya Angelou know the feeling of these experiences first hand. Through the essays “The Fourth Of July” written by Andre Lorde and “Sister Flowers” written by Maya Angelou, the authors depict a specific event that altered their perceptions of society. Though the essays are quite different, the authors both characterize on the tragic experiences they had as children and how it lead them to a certain revelation.

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April 4, 1929, St. Louis, Missouri was the birth of the multitalented, Marguerite Annie Johnson. Family of Marguerite is mother, Vivian Baxter Johnson, father, Bailey Johnson, and brother, Bailey Johnson, Jr. Later in the early twenties of Marguerite Johnsons’ life, she changed her name to Maya Angelou. Since the divorce of Maya’s parents, her life has been nothing but an uncontrollable rollercoaster. As a youth, Maya Angelou had to eventually overcome her strugglers and regain what she once lost years ago when troubled occurred.

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Maya Angelou philosophy and teachings are timeless. There is a lesson to be learned in her more than 30 published works and her lessons taught as a professor and lecturer. More important she lived what she preached. She had a strong belief in humanity as a whole, in the human spirit and in the African American community. She fought tirelessly to change extinguish racism, prejudice and discrimination during a time when she herself as a black woman experienced its effects.

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“This is the value of the teacher, who looks at a face and says there's something behind that and I want to reach that person, I want to influence that person, I want to encourage that person, I want to enrich, I want to call out that person who is behind that face, behind that color, behind that language, behind that tradition, behind that culture. I believe you can do it. I know what was done for me” (Maya Angelou). A teacher guides the long run of the society. someone in his or her whole life learns plenty from academics, therefore it's important for academics to line an honest example for the society.

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513 Words | 3 Pages

Maya Angelou, born in St Louis Missouri on April 4, 1928, American author, poet, and civil right activist. Her parents divorced when she was three years old, and she was sent along with her four-year-old brother to live with their paternal grandmother in Arkansas. They were placed in a train with only tags on their wrists that read, “to whom it may concern” with their names and destination. They also absorbed the deep religious faith and old-fashioned courtesy of traditional African-American life, the strict religious and moral training. One year later, when she was seven years old, her biological father arrived without warning and took the children back with him to California.

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842 Words | 4 Pages

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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Friendly but never gushing, cool but not frigid or distant, distinguished without the awful stiffness”(Angelou 212) Later, Maya again demonstrates the strong person in which she had become when she drives her drunken father out of Mexico. She knows that something terrible could happen if she does not take control. As Sidonie Ann Smith states “for the first time, Maya finds herself in control of her fate. Such total control contrasts vividly to her earlier recognition in Stamps that she as a Negro had no control over her fate. Here she is alone with that fate.

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1444 Words | 6 Pages

Maya Angelou began her writing career thanks to a number of influential people in her life, her experiences growing up in segregated Southern society, and her career as a political activist and journalist Of the many people who inspired Maya Angelou to write, a number of individuals stand out. One of these individuals was Angelou’s childhood neighbor and mentor, Mrs. Flowers. Early on in her life, Angelou was the victim of sexual assault by her mother’s boyfriend. The event left her with significant feelings of guilt, and as a result, she refused to speak for several years. It wasn’t until she was introduced to Mrs. Flowers that Angelou regained the confidence needed to speak again.

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462 Words | 2 Pages

This book sends the message that even though everything you have been through is rough you still have a future out there for you and even with self-doubts it’s okay to push forward. Even in the book when Maya wanted to give up and she had doubts she still pushed through and made it to her future where she finally found a place where she felt she belonged. Using this can inspire people to push through and work toward their

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1975 Words | 8 Pages

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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999 Words | 4 Pages

Maya’s experiences throughout her childhood and “adulthood” convey the idea that nobody can dictate someone else’s identity except the person themselves. Maya’s experiences throughout her childhood show the idea that nobody can dictate someone else’s identity except the person themselves. At only eight years old, her mother’s ex-boyfriend molested and raped her. During his trial, Maya lied about what he had done and denied that he’d ever touched her before he actually raped her.

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912 Words | 4 Pages

In Maya Angelou’s “Graduation” she spoke about a fictional character named Marguerite Johnson and her eighth-grade graduation. Marguerite was always kinda of lost and selfish at times, and never look at how others seen things. But as the story goes on Marguerite starts to find herself and understand others. “Graduation” isn’t just about how Marguerite pass on to the next grade but how she has grown from a lost girl to a young intelligence woman. In this story the reader is going to follower her on this surprising journey.

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1286 Words | 6 Pages

Women of today’s society should follow their example. Maya Angelou proudly embraces her culture, her body image, cause she says that “…I dance like I’ve got diamonds; at the meeting of my thighs.” Out of the huts of history’s shame, she defies all and denies all as she finally establishes her empowerment and rights. Her use of simile throughout the text and the extended metaphors in each of the stanzas not only create a sense of pride but it enhances her own qualities. “I am a black ocean, leaping and wide; Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.”

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