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Literary Analysis Of Maya Angelou's Champion Of The World

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The excerpt titled “Champion of the World” is extracted from Maya Angelou’s autobiographical work I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, published in 1969. This passage tells the story of Angelou’s community gathering at the local store to watch the match between Joe Louis and Primo Carnera in June of 1935. Angelou describes the spirit of the black community in Stamps, Arkansas as they listen to a match between two heavyweight boxers. Angelou Uses extensive imagery to depict the tension before the match, the excitement during the match and the celebration after the match. The imagery, hyperboles and many other rhetorical devices help to give the reader a great sense of the events depicted in this excerpt. In the first section of the story, Angelou uses figures of speech and extensive detail to show the importance of the event to her community. The first line, “The last inch of space was filled, yet people continued to wedge themselves along the walls of the Store” (par. 1), Angelou uses a hyperbole to give vivid imagery that emphasizes the number of people in the Store. The second line where “Uncle Willie had turned up the radio so that youngsters on the porch wouldn’t miss a word” (par.1), shows the devotion and involvement of the entire community. The simile used by Angelou to represent the mood shift, “… as a black sky is streaked with lightning” (par. 2), shows the sudden, unexpected, and fast change from tense to high-spirited talk. Angelou then goes to give examples the pre-game-chatter like “Joe’s gonna whip that cracker like it’s open season(par. 3-4). The diction used shows the culture of that community. The hyperboles and details give a great view of the settings in the story. Angelou then continues to tell the story using imagery of the crowd's reaction to the announcer's voice. The line “In the Store the crowd grunted” (par. 6), gives a great image of the group's general reaction before the fight quickly continues. Angelou continues to giving the crowds reaction after each line the announcer blares (par. 7-11). The fight then takes a quick break for ads. The announcer declared the break by giving a formal acknowledgment to the audience (par. 12). By doing so, Angelou “… wondered if the announcer gave any

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