Author Research

8/18/10

Maya Angelou's name was originally Marguerite Johnson, but her brother shortened it to Maya. Maya Angelou is hailed as one of the great voices of contemporary literature. She is one of the best know African American woman writers. Maya not only writes novels but also poets. In her book she spoke of hard times but also of how she grew through those hard times. Along with many books and poems, Angelou also read a poem for President Clinton's inauguration. She herself agreed that she is a woman of her time. She has said she doesn't regret anything she has ever read but has noted that she should have gone further with that particular piece. Maya Angelou is a woman of great strength and I enjoyed reading her biography. The way she speaks about her family and loved ones is brilliant. I wish I could be more like her in some ways. I believe Maya Angelou will continue to be a fantastic writer until the day she no longer has the ability to do so.

Brown Agins, Dona. "Dr. Maya Angelou." aablc January 1994: n. pag. Web. 22 Aug 2010. .

Final Response

8/17/10

When I thought about reading this book I originally didn't know that it was a biography. My first thoughts were negative because most biographies I have read are sometimes uneventful or poorly written. This however, was not one of those biographies. I was surprised at how the book starts in a small town called Stamps and is somehow still easy and fun to read about. Apposed to the other book I read for this project, Angelou describes her characters right off the bat. You do not have to wait for character development to find their significance in the novel. I also noticed that Angelou doesn't draw out an event for as long as possible. She moves on to another subject because she knows it will become boring to read about the same thing for a hundred pages. For example even when she was explaining how she got raped. She wrapped the whole ordeal that effected her mentally for a year, up in about one chapter. The book was not very long but Angelou was still able to contain her astonishing life's story in only 289 pages.

Quote #10

8/17/10
page 289

At the end of the book when Maya is sleeping with her new-born son. Her mother wakes her up to assure her she is doing fine. She says, "See, you don't have to think about doing the right thing. If you're for the right thing, then you do it without thinking." This quote not only describes Maya's actions with the baby. It also explains her whole way of thinking. By telling her this it shows that her mother lives her life with those words in mind. By adding it in her book, it shows that Angelou must feel the same way.

Quote #9

8/17/10
page 233

"It was obvious to me that he had never belonged in Stamps, and less to the slow-moving, slow-thinking Johnson family." In this situation Maya learns who her father really is. She starts to understand that it was right that her parents divorced because her father didn't belong in that family. She was seeing the man he really was and understood that he wouldn't have fit in anyway.

Quote #8

8/17/10
page

"Can't do is like Don't care, niether of them have a home." This quote shows Angelou's attitude towards life. She is the type of person to push through anything. She doesn't believe that you should give up on something, because that just means you are giving up on yourelf.

Quote #7

8/17/10
Page 215

"How maddening it was to be born in a cotton field with aspirations of grandeur." This quote captures the significance of segregation during this time. How Maya feels about being black and how it will effect the way she grows up. She explains in this quote how mad it makes her to think that she can't be succesful because of her skin color. Growing up in the cotton fields is a symbol for her being black and not being able to have freedom to be who she would like to be.

Quotes #6

8/17/10
Page 1

When Angelou has a toothache and Momma goes into town and tries to get an appointment with the white dentist he says " I would rather stick my hand in a dog's mouth than in a nigger's." The offensive word and the quote itself is hateful. It helps to describe the hate towards blacks during this time. The fact that the dentist would choose treating a dog over treating someone with brown skin is ludicrous and only Momma can see that in this situation.