Term Paper on "Maya Angelou Life"

Term Paper 9 pages (2668 words) Sources: 9

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Maya Angelou

Summary of Five Articles on Maya Angelou

Danahay (1991) takes on one of the most important topics in Angelou's writings -- but a topic that is probably even more central to the teaching of Angelou's writings -- the concept of resistance and accommodation. He makes the point -- as does she, although she does so in more understated ways -- that these two dynamics are not in fact opposed to each other. Rather, resistance and accommodation present themselves to each person in a complicated set of choices, and often it is not clear to an individual (such as the choices that Angelou's characters face) whether a given action is personally empowering or not, and whether that empowerment is based on resistance or some other dynamic.

McMurry (1976) takes on a similar subject, looking at the way in which role-playing can be a form of resistance. Rather than being a retreat from reality or a way of denying the real challenges and traumas faced by African-Americans. Role-playing, which can take the form of playing up to the stereotypes that white and Latino/a Americans (and members of other American racial groups), can actually be a form of resistance. So long as the roles that one plays are done with insight and intention, Angelou writes, and McMurry examines, they can be freeing. Without such insight, however they can be significantly disempowering and perpetuate inter-generational trauma.

Lirola (2002) asks her readers to consider one of the ways in which Angelou has staked a claim to speaking for the kinds of people and communities. Angelou, she notes, has incorporated the speech patterns of black women in a way that few other authors have done. Certainly using vernacular speech forms (from vocabulary to syntax) is nothing new, and has been used by a range of American writers, especially those attempting to convey to the rest of the world the value of the ideas expressed by a population whose ideas are often dismissed because of the style in which they are conveyed.

Grady (2008) also focuses on the ways in which Angelou gives expression to a population that is too often silenced by a range of social and cultural -- and psychological and emotional factors -- by writing her own autobiography in various forms. By using the richness of her own expressive capabilities -- which are far in excess of what most of us have -- she makes a most eloquent case that there is in every human life a wonderful story. African-American women are so often denied access to their own stories; Angelou frees both herself, other black women, and the communities in which these women live to tell their stories.

Estes-Hicks (1993) examines how Angelou has created a richly complex analysis of life for African-Americans, and especially African-American women, in the segregated South. This is one of the themes that runs throughout her writing, and one of the topics that she makes more complicated than it usually is. The segregated South is for her not simply the terrible place of the KKK and lynchings and a thousand daily slights. It is all these things, but it is home too, and her writings help her readers (regardless of their personal circumstances) to understand how a place can be both safe and unsafe for its people.

References

Danahay, M. (1991). Breaking the Silence: Symbolic Violence and the Teaching of Contemporary 'Ethnic' Autobiography. College Literature 18(3).

Estes-Hicks, O. (1993). The Way We Were: Precious Memories of the Black Segregated South. African-American Review 27(1): 9-18.

Grady, M.L. (2008). Letters to my daughter. Journal of Women in Educational Leadership 6(4): 233-234.

Lirola, M.M. (2002). On the Use of Marked Syntax in Maya Angelou's Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now. Journal of Language and Literature 1:

McMurry, M.K. (1976). Role-Playing as Art in Maya Angelou's Caged Bird. South Atlantic Bulletin: A Quarterly Journal Devoted to Research and Teaching in Modern Languages and Literatures 41(2): 106-111.

Five Websites on Maya Angelou

There are a wealth of websites that touch on the life and work of Maya Angelou, although many do not have any commentary or analysis of her poems, offering instead the texts alone. This itself is, of course, quite valuable, although these are other ways to access her work. However, getting to hear the poet read her own work, for example on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqOqo50LSZ0 shows her reading "Still I Rise" is a very powerful experience and for me had the effect very much of bringing her poetry to life in a much more powerful way.

The site http://www.wic.org/bio/mangelou.htm also has videos of her, including her presidential inaugural poem. That too was very powerful, not just because of the loose-limbed glory of the words, but also because of the powerful statement made by having an African-American woman take the world stage in such a definitive way. This site also provides some biographical information about the poet, including the fact that she has steadfastly worked to empower women in the Third World, women who often at least as silenced as black women in the South have traditionally been.

Other sites do offer information and insight about her work, background on her life, and how these two are related. For example, http://aalbc.com/authors/maya.htm provides basic biographical information as well as analysis of what makes her work so powerful. One especially insightful comment from this site is the following: "Ultimately Maya Angelou's style testifies to her reaffirmation of self-acceptance, [which] she achieves within the pattern of the autobiography."

The site http://www.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/canam/angelou.htm includes an extensive chronology of her literary works and her biography as well as some examples of her work. It also includes a number of short literary analyses of her work, including the fact that she often addresses the theme of rape (she herself is a rape survivor) and the fact that while a number of the themes that she addresses arise very directly from her experiences as an African-American woman and are consonant with the experiences of other African-Americans while other poems touch on themes and experiences that touch on all humanity.

The site http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2279/the-art-of-fiction-no-119-maya-angelou provides a short review of a talk and a reading that Angelou gave -- reminding the reader that poetry is a living art, an art that requires the spoken voice to be fully realized -- as well as an extensive interview that covers all aspects of Angelou's life and writing, especially her emphasis on the concept of "courage" that runs throughout her work.

The interviewer draws Angelou out about the details of how she writes, and how she thinks about both writing and life. This is one of the many passionate quotes from Angelou in the interview:

Oh my God, I've lived a very simple life! You can say, Oh yes, at thirteen this happened to me and at fourteen . . . But those are facts. But the facts can obscure the truth, what it really felt like. Every human being has paid the earth to grow up. Most people don't grow up. it's too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older. That's the truth of it. They honor their credit cards, they find parking spaces, they marry, they have the nerve to have children, but they don't grow up. Not really. They get older. But to grow up costs the earth, the earth. It means you take responsibility for the time you take up, for the space you occupy. it's serious business. And you find out what it costs us to love and to lose, to dare and to fail. And maybe even more, to succeed. What it costs, in truth. Not superficial costs -- anybody can have that -- I mean in truth. That's what I write. What it really is like. I'm just telling a very simple story. (http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2279/the-art-of-fiction-no-119-maya-angelou)

A Very Simple Story

Maya Angelou claims to write simply, to craft simple stories. This is and isn't true. Or perhaps a more accurate way to say it is that her poems are deceptively simple because she uses common, vernacular English and her poems tends to use simple meters, idiomatic cadences, and simple vocabulary. We can, as readers, almost see ourselves writing such poetry, and we can certainly feel comfortable reading her poetry. But the simplicity is deceptive, the seeming ease of someone doing something difficult with such talent that we as observers cannot see the degree of work involved.

Angelou writes about her own life, often in the direct form of autobiography, often in the indirect form of poetry that takes up themes from her own life and that of others (often African-American women, but quite often other types of individuals). One of her strengths as a writer and as a leader is that she acknowledges the specificity of her writing -- that it addresses the dreams and fears of a group of people who are often given no voice in the public theater -- while also tying what she does to the work of all poets since poetry became… READ MORE

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