Maya Angelou Research Papers

Maya Angelou

Born Marguerite Johnson on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri Maya Angelou later changed her name to promote her writing. Maya- represents the childhood name her brother Bailey gave her and Angelou is a variation of her married last name. At the age of three her parents divorced and sent her and her younger brother Bailey to live with their paternal grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. When she was seven years old she moved to Chicago to live with her mother and encountered one of the most traumatic experiences of her life. When Maya was eight years old she was sexually assaulted and the man that assaulted her is murdered. This leads to a four year period of Maya only speaking to her brother Bailey. After the attack Maya and

The main theme of the novel is Maya's struggle to survive and grow up in a complicated and harsh world. Maya is extremely young when she and her brother are sent from their parents' house to live with their grandmother and uncle in Stamps, Arkansas. Life in Stamps is not easy. Momma (what they called their grandmother) is a religious fundamentalist and harsh disciplinarian who does not know how to show her love to the children. There is also a great deal of prejudice against blacks in Stamps. Maya's life becomes even more of a struggle when she goes to live with her mother in California. The beautiful Vivian (Maya's biological mother) makes Maya feel more awkward than ever; she also has no idea how to mother the young Maya. Because of Vivian's lack of protectiveness, Maya, at the age of eight, is raped by Mr. Freeman, who is Vivian's live-in boyfriend. When Maya's uncles learn about the rape, they beat Freeman to death. After this double tragedy, Maya is filled with guilt and shame. As a result, she goes into a state of silence and emotional exile. Unable to handle her emotionally distraught child, Vivian sends Maya back to Stamps to live with Momma. In Arkansas, Maya finds that her color and her gender complicate her life, for she is treated as a second class citizen. To prove her worth, she buries herself in books and studies and graduates from middle

She has become an acclaimed author, poet, and director. She has overcome many obstacles in life to achieve her status today. She was a black woman, single mother during a time when neither was expectable. She faced struggles that many of us today could not handle. In her poem "And Still I Rise," she speaks of being a woman during those times. With the words, "You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I'll rise." Oh Yes, Ms. Maya I feel the struggle you speak of! During her life she had to deal with men, and women of not only her race and ethnicity, but those of other races cut their eyes at her as she walked down the street, but she still went on to achieve what she was told was unachievable. For years I've grew up hearing that black women are strong women, the pillars of their community, not to mention the ties that keep their families together. Studies have shown that black women are the ones most likely able to keep a household together without the help of a male provider. Then you model yourself after these women and you grow up and become what you've been told that you should be as a young black woman with this rich ancestry and then you become involved in a relationship and you are told, "you need to stop acting like a man", or "a lesbian would love you" and my favorite, "you need to learn to stay in your place". This counter acts