Analysis Of What's Your Name Girl? By Maya Angelou

n American history, racial inequality has been a prevalent issue for many decades. Slavery is America's original sin. In the 1930s, racial inequality and segregation lived and breathed well. At this point in time, segregation in schools and other public places was still present. For preposterous reasons, white and black people had separate water fountains, restaurants, rest rooms, and areas on the bus. During this time full of racism and racial inequality, Maya Angelou was just a little girl growing up in St. Louis, Missouri. St. Louis is a town in the South, like many others, had inequalities at the time. In 1938 Maya Angelou was only ten years old. At this age, she worked for a lady named Mrs. Viola Cullinan. Maya Angelou wrote briefly about her time spent working for Mrs. Cullinan in her short story “Mary.” Maya Angelou's’ use of vivid, direct characterization and alternating childish voice to mature adult narrative diction filtered through her authentic first person point of view helps to prominently establish the theme of Angelou’s distaste for racial inequality throughout the short story.

By naming one of the characters Mary Anne, the writer immediately evokes a sense of Southern lineage. Almost unheard of in other regions, double names are incredibly popular in the American south. On the other hand, the name Wanda etymologically means “a Wend.” While Mary Anne had been the one out of the two to physically leave after graduation “lookin’ for a bright new world,” Wanda “wends” all around town and stumbles upon Earl. In this aspect, Wanda does not choose to be in an abusive relationship – she falls into it.

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.

This apprises the reader on how Margaret is kinda being bi-polar and how she just faked the whole thing about her being sad. By her crying, she indirectly professes that she cares about her husband but in reality she’s a brutal women who does really care about him.

On a smaller level, the use of names to show miscommunication can been seen between the girl with the small, square glasses and her mother. When she tells her mother she is pregnant, one of the first things she does is mention “a list of names, none of which I [the girl with the small square glasses] would have thought of, and none of which I like”. This simple display shows the divide between the mother and daughter and their extreme lack of proper

Racial segregation was very dominant in the United States in the mid nineteen hundreds. This is the time that Maya Angelou was graduating from the eighth grade in Stamps Arkansas. The theme of racial segregation is well shown by the how different the schools of the African-Americans was compared to that of whites in the essay “Graduation” by Maya Angelou. In the essay the Angelou points out that Lafayette County Training School didn’t have a lawn, hedges, tennis court, climbing ivy as well as a fence the thing the white high school had. In every stage of life, graduation marks the advancement to the next different phase of life and is usually acknowledged by some ceremonies relating to the growth

When she enters the bedroom, her voice changes from present to past tense and she starts to reminisce and begins to talk about her mother and aunts. She seems happy to remember her mother’s room and introduces her aunts to the audiences. Mary delivers her dialogue saying that the dressing table and the small elephant statue figures are all same. When Mary gently touches her mother’s photo, she delivers a sad tone. Her performance conveys to the audiences that she misses her mother. The tone of her voice represents that she is a gentle, innocent and a loving child. Her verbal and non-verbal interactions conveyed the viewers with a message that she is an orphan.

“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.

Are encouraging words the uniting force when fighting injustice? In “Graduation Day,” Maya Angelou addresses how encouraging words affected the injustice she faced as a child. Angelou informs her audience about the influence encouraging words had on her and the people in her community. These uplifting words united her community in a time of overwhelming bias. Encouraging words unite oppressed people to fight injustice.

In this story, Margaret is angry with the fact that Viola Cullinan calls her by ‘Mary’ just for her convenience because Margaret is too long.

In “My First Lifeline” written by Maya Angelou, the author vividly explains a lifeline thrown to her in a time of need. The essay became a reflection of Angelou’s childhood and presented the reasoning behind some of the traits she acquired. Angelou utilizes vernacular speech, figurative language, and sensory details to aid in expressing the first lifeline thrown at her.

Maya Angelou was born April 4, 1928. Her real name is Marguerite Johnson, but she later changed it to Maya. She was born in St. Louis, shortly after her birth her family up and move to Arkansaw. Maya grew up there in the rural parts of Arkansaw, and later married to a South African Freedom Fighter. She lived in Cairo with him, there she began her career as editor of the Arab Observer.

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”).

In the essay “What’s Your Name, Girl?” Maya Angelou explores the injustice and suffering of her childhood as a black girl living in Stamps, Arkansas. Immediately, as the essay begins, you acquire insight on how Angelou seemed to be envious of white girls: “But Negro girls in small Southern towns, whether poverty-stricken or just munching along on a few of life’s necessities, were given as extensive and irrelevant preparations for adulthood as rich white girls shown in magazines. Admittedly the training was not the same. While white girls learned to waltz and sit gracefully with a teacup balanced on their knees, we were lagging behind, learning the mid-Victorian values with very little money to indulge them.” (17-18). Angelou recognized how unfair black people were treated. They had to scrounge up money whenever they could, while white people would effortlessly “waltz and sit gracefully” whenever they wanted to. She was envious of white people’s social statuses and what little work they had to do in the world and she wanted to be one of them; she wanted to live an easy life.

I'm going to be analyzing the short story, New Directions, By Maya Angelou. It's a story with a strong theme of courage. A book that reminds us that we can still make a name for ourselves, even if we have to do it alone. I'll be discussing a few of the key elements of the story such as the plot, setting, and mood in this analysis.