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Critical review of maya angelou
Maya angelou literary analysis
Critical review of maya angelou
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Maya Angelou
1039 Words3 Pages
Maya Angelou
By consistently weaving the theme of motherhood into her literature,
Maya Angelou creates both personal narratives and poems that the reader
can relate to. Her exploration of this universal theme lends itself to a
very large and diverse audience. Throughout Angelou's works, she allows
her followers to witness her metamorphosis through different aspects of
motherhood.
Well-worked themes are always present in Angelou's works- self-
acceptance, race, men, work, separation, sexuality, and motherhood.
However, Angelou uses the latter to provide "literary unity" (Lupton 7-8).
Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Annie Johnson on April 4, 1928, to
Vivian Baxter and Bailey Johnson. After three years her parents divorced,
and both Maya and her older brother Bailey, were sent to Stamps, Arkansas.
Once in Stamps, the children were cared for by their paternal grandmother,
Mrs. Annie Henderson (Neubauer 21).
In her first book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou tells
the story of her childhood. She also makes the reader keenly aware of her
close connection with her grandmother. Stephen Butterfield says of Caged
Bird (in his Black Autobiography in America, 1974): "Continuity is
achieved by the contact of mother and child, the sense of life begetting
life that happens automatically in spite of all confusion- perhaps also
because of it."
Annie Henderson is a God-fearing, independent woman whose firm hand
leads Maya throughout many rough spots in her childhood. It is through Mrs.
Henderson's values of self-determination and personal dignity that Maya's
id...
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...York: Random House, 1972.
Angelou, Maya. I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. New York: Random House,
1969.
Angelou, Maya. Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas. New
York: Random House, 1976.
Lupton, Mary Jane. "Singing the Black Mother: Maya Angelou and
Autobiographical Continuity." Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vol 77.
Detroit, MI: Gale Research Inc., 1993.
Neubauer, Carol E. "Maya Angelou: Self and A Song of Freedom in the
Southern Tradition." Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vol 77. Detroit,
MI: Gale Research Inc., 1993.
Vermillion, Mary. "Reembodying the Self: Representations of Rape in
`Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl' and `I Know Why the Caged Bird
Sings." Contemporary Literary Criticism. Detroit, MI: Gale Research
Inc., 1993.
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