Maya Angelou A Model Woman Through Influential Literature...

There are many women of today that have become a model for society. In order to have the reputation of the model woman, there is a need for accomplishment in life in addition to being a positive influence on society itself. Maya Angelou is a great example of the model woman. She has beaten the odds and has become one of the most well known African American women of today. She is an author, poet, historian, songwriter, playwright, dancer, stage and screen producer, director, performer, singer, and civil rights activist. Her most influential work comes from her extraordinary books and poems. Her literature has influenced the young and old with their contents. Maya Angelous literary significance rests primarily upon her exceptional†¦show more content†¦Joanne M. Braxton described her and her literature as Americas most visible black woman autobiographer. While black women writers might share traditional motivations for writing autobiography, other motives derive from their uni que experiences. And yet, against all odds, she comes to self-awareness and finds herself at the center of her own experience. Maya Angelou has tempered her own anger and put it to a constructive purpose; her work specks to the necessity of reflecting, remembering, opening, healing, and, at times, issuing a warning. In I know Why the Caged Birds Sings, she focuses almost entirely on the inner spaces of her emotional and personal life, crafting a literary autobiography that becomes not merely a personal record but also a stage on which the sins of the past can be recalled and rituals of healing and reconciliation enacted. (Braxton, Joann, page 4) Maya Angelou has been awarded over 30 honorary degrees and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for her 1971 volume of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water Fore I Diiie. Again, the theme of this volume of poetry focuses on Angelous perspective on what it means to be a black woman in the United States, but also address experiences common to all people. The book has two parts, Where Love is a Scream of Anguish and Just Before the World Ends. The firstShow MoreRelatedEssay On Maya Angelou1280 Words   |  6 PagesMaya Angelou, named at birth, Marguerite Johnson was on April 4th, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri. Her and her family moved from St. Louis to Stamps, Arkansas, where she was raised growing up. Maya Angelou was an American author, dancer, screenwriter, actress, poet and civil rights activist. Angelou gained a majority of her fame with the memoir she wrote in 1969, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. This memoir made literary history as being the first nonfiction best-seller by an African-American womanRead MoreI Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou6502 Words   |  27 PagesAnalysis: Chapters 1–5 The lines from the poem Maya cannot finish, â€Å"What are you looking at me for? I didn’t come to stay . . .† capture two of the most significant issues she struggles with in her childhood and young adulthood: feeling ugly and awkward and never feeling attached to one place. First, Maya imagines that though people judge her unfairly by her awkward looks, they will be surprised one day when her true self emerges. At the time, she hopes that she will emerge as if in a fairy-tale