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
Throughout the years, sports have become a major part of society. Sports, a large percentage of the time, are a part of peoples’ lives in one way or another. Whether they participate in them or just enjoy watching them, sports are a big deal to the majority of people. There are also some individuals who have redefined the expectations when it comes to certain sports. For instance, Babe Ruth redefined the way people think about baseball, or Michael Jordan completely changing the game of basketball. But Joe Louis and Venus and Serena Williams have changed their games in a way no one could have imagined. Although “Champion of the World” by Maya Angelou and “Woman Who Hit Very Hard and How They’ve Changed Tennis” by Michael Kimmelman are different, they are similar in the ways they show how the respected athletes, Joe Louis and the Williams sisters, changed the game and were seen using symbolism in racial and sexual progression.
How It Feels to be Color Me is starts off with Zora having problems with identifying who she is and having pride in herself. As the story goes on she begin have pride and identifies her self as an African American. But it ends with that it doesn't matter about what race you are. On the other hand Maya Angelou’s Champion of the World tells of a story about her hearing a boxing match for the heavyweight boxing title between African American male and a white male. Her story is all about black pride and the racism blacks faced. Both stories are similar but also defers from each other.
“You have tried to destroy me and although I perish daily I shall not be moved,” (Angelou, 2014), says Maya Angelou in her Commencement speech to the 1992 Spelman College graduates. Poet and award-winning author, Maya Angelou, is most well known for her poetry, essay collection, and memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Angelou happened to be the first black female cable car conductor who later started a career in theatre and music (Maya Angelou: Poet and Historian, n.d.). Once her acting and musical career began to take off, Angelou began touring with productions and released her first album Miss Calypso (Maya Angelou Fast Facts, 2017). Later, Angelou earned a Tony Award nomination for her role in the play Look Away and an Emmy Award nomination for the work she performed in the television mini-series Roots (Maya Angelou: Poet, Civil Rights Activist, Author, Activist, 2017). Angelou was also the first African American woman to have her screenplay produced (Maya Angelou: Poet, Civil Rights Activist, Author, Activist, 2017). Out of the number of poetry collections Angelou published, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘Fore I Die happened to be her most famous collection that was also nominated for the Pulitzer Prize (Maya Angelou: Poet, Civil Rights Activist, Author, Activist, 2017). The focus of this paper is to critique Angelou’s credibility, sincerity, and appeal to her whole audience in her delivery during the Spelman Commencement Address in 1992.
With or without ‘Gloves’ black people’s fight is not against another man, but the negative energy and injustice that is being thrown their way. Maya Angelou's "Champion of the World" shows the struggle through injustice by the structure, quality, and applicability of the piece.
Maya Angelou is one out of the best known poets. She has written a lot of poems that inspires and assist people with their lives. She has a “desire humbleness to learn and experience all that life has to offer her” (gale biography in context, “Maya Angelou More than a Poet”) which makes her poems have a meaning to them. In addition, Maya Angelou got a lot of pieces of poems considered equality to her experience as a human of the United States during race times and her experience as a person who worked with other civil right activist. Maya Angelou uses deep themes that leaves the reader to think about the topic is being talked about. In her poem, “Still I Rise” she talks metaphorically about discrimination. In the poem, it states, “does my haughtiness offend you? ( the poetry foundation, “Maya Angelou”). This quote from the poem shows how the rest of the poem is about people believe they is better than other people and that the other people should suffer because they are inferior to the people, but the people being abused should not be embarrassed of who they are and be thankful for life(“Maya Angelou More than a Poet 1”).
The poem Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou, was voiced by Maya Angelou herself, and the audience hearing that she was trying to reach was the “pretty women” in the world who have a definition of flawless that Maya does not agree with. She wanted her audience to know that while they may be beautiful, that she is beautiful and flawless by her own terms and that being flawless does not only mean being small and looking like the models in the magazines. One could argue that her audience is all the women in the world who are not small. She is also reaching out to women who have some of the same characteristics that she has because they are relatable. Men are also her audience as she goes on to explain why men find her attractive, this is also a device used to show the audience that many different cases of women can be viewed as attractive. A woman who loves herself is a woman who will attract a man of good substance.
Maya Angelou created a poem “Phenomenal Woman” that most women should be able to relate to. Throughout the entire poem, Angelou briefly goes in depth about being a confident woman. To have confidence is to be genuinely content from within. She expresses the importance of her beauty and explains why she is this phenomenal woman in each line in the poem. Women in today’s society worry about what they lack in their appearance, rather than focusing on the beauty from within. Some may feel like they are not worth it because they do not meet up to a certain expectation. Angelou explicates how having confidence regardless of how you look, shows your value. It goes beyond your looks, instead, it focuses on someone’s personality and how one view themselves. If one can see their potential, that is what matters the most. In each stanza, she is persuasive and confident using tone, language, and symbolism.
The main arguments in this poem is how women should be confident in themselves. Maya Angelou is an embodiment of a strong, powerful woman. Even the title of the poem I picked empowers and encourages women. With the stroke of her pen she writes with amazing sass and confidence. The point of this book is show how she gives reasons why women are beautiful and why she loves being a woman.
As a child, you experience many things that are either good or bad. Some of these things can affect the way you act and live. The good things can make you act happy, while the bad things can make you and your life very negative. As the famous poet Maya Angelou once said: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” What she meant by this was is depending on how you interact with someone, that someone will emotionally and mentally be affected by it in the future. It’s like if you were abusive to your kids. In the future, your kids will end up being mean to their kids just because of what you did to them.
an African-American author WHO is best better-known for her seven autobiographies was additionally a prolific associated booming author. She has been known as "the black woman's author laureate", and her poems are known as the anthems of African Americans.[1] Angelou studied and commenced writing poetry at a young age, and used poetry and alternative nice literature to deal with trauma, as she represented in her 1st and most well-known life, i do know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She became a author once a series of occupations as a young adult, together with as a forged member of a eu tour of Porgy and Bess, and a entertainer of calypso music in nightclubs within the Fifties. several of the songs she wrote throughout that amount later found their
In “Champion of the World” Angelou expresses how important it was for the African American community for Joe to win the fight. Angelou claims, “My race groaned. It was our people falling. It was another lynching, yet another Black man hanging on a tree”.When Joe is losing the fight Angelou recalls the oppression her race faced by
“We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.” Nearly twenty-four years ago, award-winning poet Dr. Maya Angelou used these ten simple words to end a poem for Bill Clinton’s 1993 presidential inauguration. These ten simple words that would later make history. It is apparent that Dr. Angelou felt we, as humans, shared more similarities than differences, is this true? In today's world, many people think not. Racial and cultural discrimination has become a growing issue in the past years. With no doubt in my mind, I fully agree with Dr. Angelou with her belief that we are more alike than different.
In today is society there is a lot of talk about women being weak, but truth is we are not. Women as a whole have so much power and control that we use in many ways. We all know that society have always portrayed women as emotional creatures but woman have learned to use their emotions as different advantages in their lives. Our emotions are stepping stones to help us do what is right whether if it is standing up for ourselves and countries, building and supporting our families and even sometimes using our emotions to get what is best for us. A great author, Maya Angelou, showed us all the ways that our advantages have been encouraged and inspiring.
Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Ann Johnson on the 4th of April 1928, was born in St. Louis, Missouri and grew up in Stamps, Arkansas. Maya Angelou is regarded as one of the most noteworthy, influential voices of modern society with over 50 doctorate degrees. She became a distinguished poet, educator, producer, actress, historian, filmmaker, memoirist, and civil rights activist throughout her life. In the 1930’s and 1940’s, Stamps, Arkansas was the embodiment of brutality and racial discrimination in the South. Growing up as a minority in a majorly white, Christian area proved to be difficult for Maya who was constantly facing the oppressive actions and behaviours of others. When she was only 7 years old, Maya suffered a traumatic incident on a visit to her mother. She was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. Fuelled by anger, her uncles killed her rapist as vengeance. Maya then returned to Arkansas spending years living as a mute. When Maya was a teenager, her love for the arts was strong winning her a scholarship to study dance and drama at San Francisco’s Labour School. By the time she was 14, she dropped out and became the first African-American female cable car conductor in America. Later, she finished high school and soon after graduation gave birth to her son, Guy. Being a young single mother meant that her love of music, dance, and poetry had to be put aside to support herself and her son by working as a waitress and cook. By the mid 1950’s, Angelou’s artistic career took
Maya Angelou, originally born as Marguerite Johnson, was an award winning poet, author and civil rights activist. She was born on April 4, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri. She had a rough childhood as her parents split up when she was young, after which Maya Angelou, then Marguerite Johnson and her brother, Bailey, were sent to live with their grandmother in rural Stamps, Arkansas. She married two men, Tosh Angelos and Paul Du Feu, but eventually had divorces with both of those men. She was raped when she was 8 years old by her mother’s boyfriend after he suddenly showed up to visit. Her uncles found out about this event and beat her mother’s boyfriend to death. She remained silent for 5 years and during this time grew her love for literature.