65 pages • 2 hours read
Maya AngelouA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Angelou and Guy stay in the Westlake district for another year and a half. During this time, Angelou moves from writing song lyrics to short stories. She shows her work to her friend, the author John Killens, and he encourages her to pursue her ambitions in New York and join the Harlem Writers Guild. Angelou finds the idea attractive, in part because of her increasing worry about her rebellious teenage son.
Angelou contacts her mother to discuss her plans. Her mother insists on meeting in a hotel in the highly segregated town of Fresno, despite her daughter’s desire to avoid “trouble.” Mother and daughter are met with stunned silence in the lobby of the hotel. Angelou is extremely nervous while her mother handles the situation with aloof composure. Later, Angelou’s mother says she should never show fear because people will sense and take advantage of it. She acknowledges that the threat crowds of white people pose and shows her daughter that she has a pistol hidden in her handbag. She has news of her own: She will be going to sea as a merchant marine. She describes it primarily as an act of defiance, “because they told me Negro women couldn’t get into the Union” (28).
By Maya Angelou
A Brave And Startling Truth
A Brave And Startling Truth
Maya Angelou
All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes
All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes
Maya Angelou
A Song Flung Up to Heaven
A Song Flung Up to Heaven
Maya Angelou
Caged Bird
Caged Bird
Maya Angelou
Gather Together in My Name
Gather Together in My Name
Maya Angelou
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou
Letter to My Daughter
Letter to My Daughter
Maya Angelou
Mom & Me & Mom
Mom & Me & Mom
Maya Angelou
Mother, A Cradle to Hold Me
Mother, A Cradle to Hold Me
Maya Angelou
On the Pulse of Morning
On the Pulse of Morning
Maya Angelou
Phenomenal Woman
Phenomenal Woman
Maya Angelou
Still I Rise
Still I Rise
Maya Angelou
The Lesson
The Lesson
Maya Angelou