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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.
In Chapter 8, as Angelou struggles to choose between Make and Allen, she stares at her reflection in a bathroom mirror. The mirror is small and dusty and, as she tries to decide on the future direction of her life, the reflection remains “vague” (119). Later, after moving to Cairo and seeking employment against her husband’s will, Angelou will remark that “nobody seems to know my name” (224). This sense of personal identity as something elusive can be seen, in part, as a reflection of Angelou’s difficulty in finding her own individual and authentic voice as an author.
As an African American woman writer, Angelou was located at the margins of the white-male-dominated American literary canon. Her use of first-person narrative in her autobiographical works can be seen as an attempt to find an authentic voice in which to document her own experience and that of others like her. Her agenda is at once personal and political, and this is reflected in the shifting focus of The Heart of a Woman, where the narrative focus constantly pans out to broader political events on a national and a global level before focusing back in on Angelou’s emotions and personal relationships.
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