The Rhetorical Analysis Of Mary Crow Dog And Graduation By Maya Angelou

Born of Flesh and Destined to Become Iron: Analyzing Rhetorical Moves in Maya Angelou’s Eulogy for Coretta Scott King

In the expert chapter, “Champion of the World”, from Maya Angelou’s autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the author takes the audience back to the 1930’s society. The story brings to life race relations among the African Americans community and the white community. In this time period , the story is set on a day in Maya Angelou's uncle store, in which they hear a radio broadcast of an important boxing match. The boxing match is not just an ordinary fight. The fighters are a white contender and a black champion, Joe Louis, defending his title. At stake is the heavyweight world championship and symbolically the honor of their race and community. Maya Angelou uses rhetorical appeals, diction , and tone to reveal a powerful message

Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise,” written in 1978, acknowledges the racism and segregation during the Civil Rights Movement. During this time, although no longer slaves, the African Americans have been given little rights and opportunity in America. Maya Angelou wrote this poem to prove to other American citizens that she is unfazed by their hate, while she strengthens her people’s motive to reach equality. Angelou utilizes metaphor, imagery and repetition to reveal how proud she is of her minority’s strength.

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

Rhetorical strategies are a great way for an author to get their tone and what they want to share to their reader. In Barbara Jordan’s Becoming Educated she uses rhetorical strategies to do just that. Jordan uses repetition and diction to increase her effectiveness of her message. She does so that the reader can also relate to what she is going through. By using repletion and diction she weaves these rhetorical devices throughout her experience to increase its effectiveness to convey her voice and her personal sense of growth.

“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 and Sherman Alexie detailed their lives as a person of color growing up in predominantly white America. When reflecting back on their lives, both authors used various techniques in order to effectively make an imprint on the reader of the trials and tribulations both authors had to go through and what they learned from the experience. By analyzing Sherman Alexie’s “Indian Education” and Maya Angelou’s “Champion of the World”, a stark contrast can be seen in how two authors can use structure and various other techniques to tell a story with a similar subject to a different effect compared to the other.

In the poem ‘Still I Rise’ by Maya Angelou, the poet uses repetition, metaphors and similes to express to her audience about how she has overcome racism in her life through demonstrating a strong, proud and defiant attitude to inspire others.

The rhetorical situation is defined as the context of a rhetorical event that consists of an issue, an audience, and a set of restraints. While this may be true, there are many interpretations and versions of these situations. In David Bartholomae’s text, “Inventing the University,” he explains the situation of college students learning to fit the requirements of their college professors. Another author named Kevin Davis formulated an essay titled, “Does Coming to College Mean Becoming Someone New,” explores a similar situation of university students in terms of their commitments and changes they make to succeed in college. Bartholomae’s rhetorical situation is persuading college professors to understand that students have a problem with

In The Rhetorical Situation, Lloyd F. Bitzer argues that what makes a situation rhetorical is similar to that which constitutes a moral action as he writes that, “an act is moral because it is an act performed in a situation of a certain kind; similarly, a work is rhetorical because it is a response to a situation of a certain kind”.(3) By defining the rhetorical situation in this way, Bitzer further contends that rhetoric is a means to altering reality. (4) It is through the use of discourse that one is capable of changing reality through thought and action. (4) Bitzer then elaborates upon the nature of a rhetorical situation by explaining that rhetorical discourse enters a situation when: providing a response to its state of affairs;

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”).

“Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.” Spoken by Maya Angelou, an esteemed African American poet and international icon of contemporary poetry, no words have better described the troubling future of our society than this quote။aside from those spoken in Martin Luther King’s legendary speech, of course. Although many would like to believe that the world is a lot different now than a century ago in terms of acceptance of the things that make us unique and divergent, it is sad to see that we really have not changed much. I will agree that, yes, the methods in which we deal with our prejudices have become a lot more civil. However, that does not mean our unseen prejudices do not affect the way we interact with others. While we may not notice how our preconceptions lead us to treat certain people better than others, our subtlest biases can become detrimental to our growth as accepting human beings. I myself have had a few experiences where I felt like I was not accepted because I was black and muslim.

*Start of the English vodcast will be me imprisoned relating it towards how the black community at the time would of felt but how they preserved through life, even after everything was thrown at them for decades.

Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise” explores the controversies behind racism and sexism. Angelou’s background has a strong impact on the stance she takes against discrimination and for feminism. She uses literary techniques such as repetition, imagery, and personal pronouns to relay her powerful message to the reader. Throughout the poem “Still I Rise,” Maya Angelou’s focuses on not only her battles against racism, but also on her personal experiences, which ultimately led her to be one of literatures most powerful female poets. Three of the main literary strategies Angelou uses are repetition, imagery, and personal pronouns.