There will be periods in your life where someone will say something or do something to make you feel bad. But in those cases sometimes who ever said that to you or did it to you that will stick with you for the rest of your life. Because you take things to heart and it sinks and sinks every time you think about it which makes you work harder at whatever you do. But one quote I won’t ever forget is one that Maya Angelou wrote “I’ve learned that people will forget what you do, what you said but they won’t ever forget how you make them feel”. Another awesome quote that I like is by Ray Lewis “Don’t Be Afraid to Be Great” So although people try to down you and hurt you always remember to be great at whatever you do. In the story “Thank You Mam”
Mrs. Cullinan's kitchen serves as Angelou's "finishing" school in that Angelou learns how to individualize her personal identity. When Angelou initially goes to Mrs. Cullinan's house, she is supposed to learn proper servant etiquette from Miss Glory, Mrs. Cullinan's current servant. This can be justified by how Angelou must learn to prepare tables, clean dishes, and shadow Miss Glory throughout the day. Angelou is an African American woman in a time shortly after the emancipation of the slaves. Thus, Angelou is still restricted by the racism of the time period’s culture, and as a result, is expected to continue in the life of serving “whitefolk”. Unlike Miss Glory, Angelou is not content with living the life of a servant, so instead of learning
Throughout life we go through many stepping stones, Maya Angelou's autobiographical essay "Graduation", was about more than just moving on to another grade. The unexpected events that occurred during the ceremony enabled her to graduate from the views of a child to the more experienced and sometimes disenchanting views of an adult. Upon reading the story there is an initial feeling of excitement and hope which was quickly tarnished with the abrupt awareness of human prejudices. The author vividly illustrates a rainbow of significant mood changes she undergoes throughout the story.
Maya Angelou was abandoned by her mother and then sent to live with her grandmother with her brother when she was 3. 10 years later she came back to live with her mother Maya thought her mother looked weired because of how pretty she looked, she thought there was no way she could be her mother. Maya Angelou shows the story of her life by writing a story “From Mom Me and Mom” and in an interview called “Learning to love my mother”. In both stories she talks about her life but there are some differences between the interview and the memoir . Also in both stories there are similarities that occur as well.
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.
Maya Angelou’s poetry occupies a very special position in her development as a writer (Chow 1). As a child, Angelou went through five years of complete silence after she was raped at the age of seven years old, by a man named, Mr. Freeman. As a result of telling about her traumatic experience, her uncle’s literally kicked the man that raped her to death. Beings she spoke of her traumatic experience and the result of the man dying, she then imagined that her voice had the potential to kill. Thanks to her teacher, Bertha Flowers, at school Angelou started writing poetry as a means of expression of her life events through her poetry (Chow 1). Poetry thus played an essential part in the recovery of her voice, which in
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
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.
“Graduation Day” illustrates Maya Angelou’s experience on her graduation day. All of Angelou’s feelings, reasoning, and thoughts of her graduation day are depicted between the pages of her short story. Her text covers multiple different aspects of a segregated community’s lifestyle and explains their decisions on coping with their limitations. The power of words impacts the community in several ways during Angelou’s story. Because words impact and shape people, they influence individuals into themselves.
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
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.
In 1940, the United States approached the eightieth-year anniversary of the abolition of slavery; however, the social oppression of African American citizens steadily increased. Despite being free for decades, they were still leagues below the white people who owned their ancestors. African American author Maya Angelou recollects on her experience of graduation from the eighth grade in her 1940 piece “Graduation Day.” The narrative not only highlights the importance of the narrator's graduation, but also the expectations of Angelou’s community due to their persecution and separation. Perseverance through separation and persecution forges dignity in an individual.
Maya Angelou is terrific performer, singer, filmmaker, and civil-rights activist. She is a phenomenal woman, one thing that she does best is writing. She is still living today, I believe her legend will never die. If one would talk to her, he or she would think she has lead a normal, happy life. Her life is blissful now, it was not always perfect. Maya beard enough emotional stress in a time frame that most people do not experience in a lifetime. Her experiences and the lessons learned encouraged her to help others become strong. Maya Angelou is one of the best examples of someone overcoming rape, being mute for several years, and having a child at a young age to achieve success of becoming an accomplished
“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.
Life is not always easy as we think, each and every one had a bad experience in your life that teaches you a lesson for us in order to win the journey of our life. In the essay, "Graduation", Maya Angelou states about the unfair treatment of whites against the African Americans during the graduation. There are situations in life where we feel discriminated but no matter what we have to gain the strength to prosper.
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”).