Maya Angelou Essay

many influential poets that deserve to be heard. Maya Angelou was a poet, influential speaker, and a writer. Angelou was one of the most influential African-American women of all time. She published books, poems, and screenplays that were later filmed. Due to all these accomplishments, she was honored with a Pulitzer Prize, a Tony Award, five Grammys, the National Medal of Art Award, and finally the Presidential Medal of Freedom (Pettinger). Angelou was most known for her poems. She wrote “Still I

Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” is an emotional coming of age autobiography set in the nineteen thirties – forties, focusing on her struggle with self-acceptance, insecurities, and prejudices. This journey is vastly explored throughout the United States such as, Arkansas, St. Louis, California, and even outside of the U.S. like Mexico. She travels with her brother to visit different members of their family, with each location having a story to tell. When she is three years old, she

In Maya Angelou’s autobiographical book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, she reveals stories from her life. From humorous, to tragic, to inspiring, these stories reveal Angelou’s life to readers. Throughout the book, readers are taken from place to place learning about how Angelou grows from a small child hates herself to a young woman who has found where she belongs in the world. Through her life experiences, Maya Angelou finds her identity by not allowing life to overpower her but to empower her

writer, the late Maya Angelou. This statement also aligns to a 1999 contemporary classic novel, Speak, where a young freshman, Melinda Sordino, faces isolation and depression to an event that occurred over the summer, one that only she knows about. In the novel, Melinda hangs up a poster of Maya Angelou in her make-shift janitor’s closet hangout. Laurie Halse Anderson uses Maya Angelou as a figure for Melinda to learn and change by in the novel Speak. Melinda could learn from Angelou that she can stand

In the book, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, by Maya Angelou the main character is Marguerite Ann Johnson (Maya). She is portrayed as a mature young girl suffering from the traumatic events associated with being a black female in America. She is said to be a smart and imaginative person. Maya felt that people judge her unfairly due to her awkward appearance. She fantasized that she actually was a blond-haired, blue-eyed girl trapped in a “black ugly dream” and would soon wake up and reveal her

In “Graduation” by Maya Angelou, Angelou discusses her feelings at her graduation ceremony. She speaks on how excited her and her peers we’re to be graduating, on to be a little let down. All though at the end she feels a bit of encouragement from another classmate. She goes on to show that what some people say can have a positive or negative meaning to it just by that person’s tone of voice. The author faces a conflict at her graduation ceremony. During the ceremony two people come up to the stage

Sings called “Graduation,” Maya Angelou narrates the anticipation surrounding graduation in her small town of Stamps, Alabama. Angelou effectively contrives noteworthy differences between paragraphs 1 through 5 and 6 through 10 through the use of emotional and descriptive diction, powerfully bold comparisons, and a shift in perspective in order to instill pride and dignity in Angelou and her race despite the era’s highlighted social injustices which she endures. Angelou employs emotional and descriptive

It must be so hard for a child to grow up without a mother, or a father. Growing up with strange people that doesn’t even know that person’s necessities must be terrifying. In the book, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” by Maya Angelou a little girl is obligated to take a train and leave her parents’ house and go to another state with her grandmother that she doesn’t even know. There are many situations where children’s lives are so difficult, for example, the absence of a parent. Maya’s parents

Maya Angelou was a remarkable woman who contributed a lot through her craft as a poet, author, activist, and philanthropist. A large amount of her work was influenced by her past life experiences that added social, cultural, and political topics to her writing. Angelou growing up endured a broken home, segregation, and rape; however, regardless of her woeful beginnings, she became one of the most notable black female writers of our century. Angelou was raised in a rural area in Arkansas,where she

Strength in Mentality Maya Angelou, in her memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, expresses the struggle of growing up, haphazardly fighting her way through the oppression a black woman received in the mid 1900’s, while also dealing with the doubt she has of her self importance. In contrast, one of Angelou’s famous poems, Still I Rise, encourages strength and confidence in one’s self, and shows little signs of insecurity. Though both works are drastically different with their characters, diction