Maya Angelou uses her captivating childhood to entrance her readers into the life of a young black girl in the 1930s-1940s and she shows her life experiences of heartbreak, seperation, admiration and many other qualities to take us through her life in the small town of Stamps, Arkansas where she spent a portion of her life living with her emotionally strong and stern grandmother and her father like figure of an uncle.
Later on she moves with her mother to St. Lois and then to California during World War 2 as young Maya tries to change to city life with the help of her brother Bailey whom she quickly states in the novel, "I would be a major loser if Bailey turned up dead. For he was all I claimed, if not all I had."
Life in Stamps is very difficult and callous for the Negro people, and Angelou conveys this so that the reader will have a greater understanding of what the times she lived in were like; she is also trying to teach us about the circumstances in which her people worked and the spirit they demonstrated.
Pie chart of religions of African Americans
United States
United StatesAngelou used alot of different devices to communicate her message. She was figurative language to bring the reader to further understand the point she is trying to make. Angelou has strong use of onomatopoeia, at the beginning of the annotated passage, she wrote "The lamplight in the store gave a soft make believe feeling to our world which made me want to whisper..." By saying that she wanted to "whisper" she further expresses that the delicate light given off by the lamplight is subtle and with the use of the word whisper and the way it is pronounced, the word "whisper" was used very effectively in the sentence.
God forbid if...