Stereotypes In Maya Angelou's Ideal Woman

The stereotypes of women, having a clear, small attractive face, long, shiny hair, glowing skin, and a small body shape. A perfect woman. In the poem Maya Angelou highly proclaims she doesn't have a dream girl figure nor a pretty face. That fact that she has accomplished things without the “must have” traits of a female and it shocks appealing women, they want to know the secret to her successfulness. According to Maya Angelou, her secret is her confidence, the way she stretches her arms, the way she walks, talks, smiles, and the rhythm of her hips. Her body is an expression of being a woman. Ending the stanza with “phenomenal woman”, this self loving physical shape and also her strong personality.

Although she did not have the ideal feminine beauty, men still were attracted to her. They would

“The sun of my smile”. Angelou uses these metaphors to represent how the men crowd around her because of her beauty and how a woman’s smile is dazzling and bright, comparing her smile to the sun. The use of Angelou’s imagery makes the reader picture a proud and self satisfied woman. She takes her assumed flaws and embraces them. Talking about her wide hips, in which a lot of women dislike about themselves, and the curl in her lips. Some examples of figurative language use in this poem includes repetition, alliteration, exaggeration, hyperbole, imagery, and parallelism. The purpose of repetition in the poem is to strengthen the word phenomenal, in return associating the word with the author being a phenomenal woman. Some symbols in poem include the body shape of the model in the beginning of the poem. This represents how people would like women to be and appear. Her “mystery” represents beauty within women. Men represents how the cliche man is only attracted to the most gorgeous woman. Personification is used when she says “the joy in my feet”. A hyperbole is used when she describes what the men do when she enters a