Essays on Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou’s series of seven autobiographies collectively captures the various sections of her enthralling and turbulent life. The Heart of a Woman (1981), as her fourth autobiography is an account of the beginning of her writing career, her encounters with several political figures, her active...

A bird resides in a cage. In ‘Caged Bird’ by Maya Angelou, the bird is restricted from any sort of freedom, and its feet are tied to constrict movement. However, the caged bird is relentless in its pursuit to sing of freedom. The obvious joy...

Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise” can be understood as the narrative of a woman who was discarded and hampered by the world and its cruel definition of beauty and success. You can discern the story of a young girl who once felt ashamed to appear...

One cannot discuss Maya Angelou’s “On the Pulse of Morning” without providing proper background concerning the context within which it came to be. The first emergence of the poem came in January of 1993 at Bill Clinton’s initial inauguration into the presidency. It was the...

Maya Angelou was an acclaimed writer and civil rights activist who reached a broad audience through her works. While she is perhaps best known for her autobiographical prose, her poetry has changed the landscape of feminist writing, bringing in a new idea of the celebration...

“Champion of the World” is a chapter from a piece called I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. It tells a story of a boxing event and describes what being African American in the early 1900’s was like. The nineteenth chapter of...

Professor Joseph Campbell states “a hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.” The “monomyth” created by Campbell is a common pattern that is found in great mythical heroes. Maya Angelou is an example how everyday people can...

Introduction Maya Angelou is one of the greatest African American Autobiographers. She is known as a ‘Global renaissance woman’. Her writing, dance career, political activism, acting career and speaking engagements have made her a national treasure. Meaning of Motherhood Motherhood has different meanings for those...

The anger when someone provokes you. The pain when someone tortures you. The desire to do justice to those who harm you. It is emotions like these that evoke the instinctual impulse to reduce our precarious sense of vulnerability when people taunt us. In the...

Holiday ideas for the fall? We propose 9 tourist destinations for a trip in October. There are for all tastes and budgets. We are in September, start to organize it. 9 ideas to travel in October (even in September) If you have a rest for...

Graduating from Middle School is hard enough, but it is harder when one is considered a minority. Regardless of one’s race rather Hispanic, African American, or Asian, the statics are against the individual. In Maya Angelou’s “Graduation,” the main character accomplishes a monumental milestone when...

In January of 1993 Maya Angelou became the first black woman – the first woman at all – to stand at the podium of a presidential inauguration as a speaker. It was a momentous occasion not only for her as a poet, but for America,...

On Aging a poem by Maya Angelou, the poet describes feelings as an aging person, who is growing older and tired. Sharing how the elderly shouldn’t be pitied or secluded just because one is growing older and gets tired easier. “On Aging” teaches us that...

The title, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, evokes a feeling of muffled hope. The reader can easily relate to the metaphor of a caged bird that moves on through life and tries to make the best of it. Although Maya Angelou had a...

“On the day when it will be possible for woman to love not in her weakness but in her strength, not to escape herself but to find herself, not to abase herself but to assert herself–on that day love will become for her, as for...

Maya was sent from her father in California to her grandmother in Stamps when she was three years old, with her four-year-old brother Bailey. She lived in the back of the store which ran by her grandmother and uncle. The store is the center for...