Maya Angelou

Angelou feels different in the short story of "Champion of the World" because she is a young African American girl in a white society fighting racism and segregation. In this short story, a white male is beating down an African American male in a boxing match for the title. This translates to the racial aspects of the white society between the African American and racism in the 1930's and 40's. For instance the girl feels that if Joe was to lose the boxing match that African Americans would be put back in slavery and be beyond help. Angelou writes with a certain rhythm and has a

Angelou begins the excerpt narrating the “graduation epidemic” surrounding the town in the third person. Starting with paragraph 6, Angelou shifts to a first-person narrative, which provides an informative insight into her personal experiences regarding her graduation. This shift in perspective marks important stylistic differences: initially Angelou focuses on conveying the experiences of the class as a whole, whereas after paragraph 6 she focuses on her own experiences, through which several contrasts can be drawn. Rhetorically, these contrasts signify that identical rhetorical strategies will have completely different connotations. For example, Angelou’s classmates whose “future[s] rode heavily on their shoulders,” emulate not Angelou, as “youth and social approval allied themselves with [her] and [she] trammeled memories of slights and insults.” Without the shift in perspective, no contrasts could be drawn between paragraphs 1 through 5 and 6 through

This is set specifically during the time in the US where racism is thriving and was very hard for people of color to make a name for themselves. Therefore Maya Angelou could relay the hardship that those times really would have impacted on Annie Johnson’s life through the setting. To add on to Annie’s struggle, the author made her a woman because during the time this story is set in, if it were a man it would be easier for him to find work and support himself because in those days a lot of women did not work. So Annie pursuing through the hard times she was provided with in this setting really relays the idea of the theme of courage in the story.

The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie highlights the often challenging lives of Nigerian women living in Africa, but also abroad in the United States. It is however, not the difficulties which Adichie is ultimately focusing on, but the courage and intelligence of women who are able to make ‘small victories’, overcoming various attempts of cultural oppression.

Maya Angelou, named at birth, Marguerite Johnson was on April 4th, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri. Her and her family moved from St. Louis to Stamps, Arkansas, where she was raised growing up. Maya Angelou was an American author, dancer, screenwriter, actress, poet and civil rights activist. Angelou gained a majority of her fame with the memoir she wrote in 1969, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. This memoir made literary history as being the first nonfiction best-seller by an African-American woman. Angelou received many awards and honors throughout her entire career. These awards included two NAACP Image Awards in the outstanding literary work (nonfiction) category, in 2005 and 2009. Angelou became one of the most legendary and influential

Maya Angelou’s Rural Museums- Southern Romance, explores the legacy of slavery and brings much needed light to it. Angelou takes a trip to Louisiana too see it’s slave cabins exhibit in search for closure. Angelou, as a black woman, feels it is her obligation to be aware of her painful history. She quotes, “Since I am a descendent of African slaves, my baggage was frightfully overweight with trepidation anger fear and a morbid curiosity…” (Angelou, 89). She acknowledges who she is and braces herself for what is to come, instead of cowering and avoiding the past just because it might make her uncomfortable like many.

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.

The separation of the African American displays the importance of graduation day. Angelou was only graduating from the eighth grade, but because of the sociocultural differences, graduation proved momentous in their community. Angelou later states “Oh, it was important, all right. White folks would attend the ceremony, and two or three would speak of God and home, and the Southern way of life” (Angelou, 2014, p. 181). The school making a minute event into a grand celebration conveys much about the state of the position African Americans were subjected to. Angelou displays this later when she describes the scene of small children presented in a play about buttercups and daisies and bunny rabbits and older girls preparing snacks and beverages. Normal society does not make such an event of Middle School

My room-mate had a single story of Africa; a single story of catastrophe”. Adichie also tells how growing up in Nigeria reading only American and English children’s books made her deaf to her authentic voice. As a child, she wrote about such things as blue-eyed white children easting apples, thinking brown skin and mangos had no place in Literature. That changed as she discovered African writers.

He tells the story of a young African girl in order to make the audience feel sympathy. He writes, "She can no longer attend the all-Negro school in her neighborhood because her mother died only recently after a car crash. Neighbors say if the ambulance hadn't come so late to take her to the all Negro hospital the mother might still be alive." This story is told so the audience will understand the blatant disregard for African American lives. It is told to make people realize that a change needs to be made and

Laurence Hill’s novel, The Book of Negroes, uses first-person narrator to depict the whole life of Aminata Diallo, beginning with Bayo, a small village in West Africa, abducting from her family at eleven years old. She witnessed the death of her parents with her own eyes when she was stolen. She was then sent to America and began her slave life. She went through a lot: she lost her children and was informed that her husband was dead. At last she gained freedom again and became an abolitionist against the slave trade. This book uses slave narrative as its genre to present a powerful woman’s life. She was a slave, yes, but she was also an abolitionist. She always held hope in the heart, she resist her dehumanization.

Anderson starts out the book by introducing the reader to her interest in African culture,and relates how she sent essays to an anthropological board so she could go to Africa to do her graduate study. She soon realised that she would be unable to do so because

“My Mother, the Crazy African” is a story about a Nigerian girl named Ralindu, and her struggles to assimilate in America. She moves to Philadelphia and lives there for three years. Her mother has a hard time getting used to America, and this causes a growing rift between her and her daughter. This rift, and how they each subsequently deal, is the main conflict in this story. Ralindu wishes to be more like the typical American; she prefers more American food, has an American nickname Lin, has a more Caucasian group of friends, and refuses to speak her native language of Igbo (Adichie, 53-69). This is a common trend among children who immigrate to the U.S.

Maya Angelou narrates her account in a conversational tone.  She uses the past tense which tells her audience "it's over" for her.  Her words are free from severity.  They encourage the reader to see hope in the midst of sadness.  Instead of trying to elicit a particular emotional response, Angelou invites her audience to share in her thoughts and feelings.  For instance, having given an account of the rape, she writes, "I thought I had died--I woke up in a white-walled world, and it had to be heaven."  The reader feels a connection with her pain, yet realizes redemption lies close at hand.  Whereas Walker tells how she was confronted by her parents, Angelou explains,"she [mother] picked me up in her arms and the terror abated for a while."  There is no impression of combativeness.  There is only tenderness and care.  Once again, she invites the reader in.  Walker wants the reader to feel for her; Angelou wants her audience to feel with her.  They achieve their objectives by directing the reader's attention to specific emotions.

     The essay “In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens” by contemporary American novelist Alice Walker is one that, like a flashbulb, burns an afterimage in my mind. It is an essay primarily written to inform the reader about the history of African American women in America and how their vibrant, creative spirit managed to survive in a dismal world filled with many oppressive hardships. This piece can be read, understood, and manage to conjure up many emotions within the hearts and minds of just about any audience that reads it. However, Walker targets African American women in today’s society in an effort to make them understand their heritage and appreciate what their mothers and