Maya Angelou's presentation of womanhood in And Still I Rise.
In Maya Angelou’s poetry collection ‘And Still I Rise’, the subject of womanhood is explored; both the exquisite and oppressive elements and how it is received and interpreted by the patriarchy. Maya Angelou is an iconic American poet and Civil Rights Activist known for her unique and pioneering autobiographical style illustrating her own experience as a black woman in 1950s America. Alongside Ella Baker, Dorothy Heights and Fannie Lou Hammer, Angelou was one of the many women endeavouring for Civil and Women's rights highlighting the intersectionality of her work. The poems Caged Bird, Phenomenal Woman and Still I Rise, illuminate this experience and its consequences on women’s lives simultaneously challenging the stereotypes of women produced by the patriarchy.
Angelou presents the state of womanhood as oppressed existence in Caged Bird. In Caged Bird, Angelou portrays the opposing states of existence of the ‘free bird’ and the ‘caged bird’. The oxymoronic title of the ‘cag[ing]’ of the ‘bird’, a symbol of freedom, instantaneously creates an image of restriction in the reader’s mind. This extended metaphor is the tool used by Angelou to illustrate the oppressive nature of the lives of women (especially African American women) in American society –challenged by intersection feminists in the 1960s such as: Bell Hooks and Angela Davis. Virginia Woolf’s ‘A Room of One's Own’, similarly attacks the intellectual subjection of “white” womanhood to the patriarchy. Structurally, the enjambment emphasises the ongoing and long-lasting nature of this experience, complementing the musicality of the poem created by the free verse. Caged Bird could be seen as conforming to the feminist idea of ‘the personal and the political cannot be separated’; the message conveyed has a duality, speaking true to the treatment of women though out history but also to Angelou as an individual. The ‘caged bird’s’ ‘clipped wings’ and ‘fearful trill’ may be alluding to Angelou’s experience of rape at seven years old, resulting in her spending five years in silence. The sight imagery of the birds ‘clipped wings’ and ‘tied’ ‘feet’ create a semantic field of restriction indicating the cause of Angelou’s longing for freedom from the oppressive qualities of the patriarchy. The personification of the ‘trees’ as ‘sighing’ illustrates the relentlessness and weariness of fighting for freedom from this omnipresent restriction. The patriarchy’s incessant curtailing of women’s liberty is mirrored by the parallel syntax of ‘and// and// and’ thus giving a fatalist view of women’s liberation. Through allocating male pronouns, ‘his’, to the ‘caged bird’, Angelou could be potentially making the poem more appealing and palatable to society. For example, the ‘man flu’ theory, highlights the double standard of forgivingness for male and female suffering in society. An alternation between harsh, strong diction choices, ‘stalks// fearful// trill’ aids Angelou in exemplifying the ‘caged bird[‘s]’ quality of life. The ‘free bird’ has the privilege of being given a fluid and wispy lexicon, ‘floats// sighing trees’, indicative of its liberty and sovereignty. The repetition of the refrain at the end gives the poem a conclusive and ominous ending: akin to the fate of women’s rights in patriarchal society. Caged Bird is a noteworthy didactic poem, giving a vivid and striking insight into Angelou’s perspective on scarcity of freedom throughout the duration of womanhood.
The divine nature of womanhood is explored in Phenomenal Woman. Through the lyric poem, Angelou challenges the western, euro-centrical standards of beauty enforced by the patriarchy catalysing psychological anguish for women. This political binary is rejected by Angelou who elucidates a contrasting standpoint on the uniqueness of the womanly experience. The consonance of ‘woman wonder where’ alongside the internal rhyme phonetically creates a poised and confident narrative voice. The song-like ring is a product of the end-rhyming couplets, helping aid the connection of words such as: ‘lies// size’, that connote a false meek and docile stereotype of women. Feminists may enjoy Angelou’s criticism and downright slandering of the ‘familiar cultural stereotype’ of women ‘as cute but essentially helpless’ in their existence. When characterising women from the patriarchy’s perspective, the choice of the adjectives ‘pretty’ and ‘cute’ displays the ‘infantilization of women’ in society. Angelou directly disobeys this by reclaiming her identity and defining herself as ‘phenomenal’. The parallel syntax of physical imagery of ‘hips’, ‘steps’ and ‘lips’ in the first stanza and ‘breasts’ and ‘back’ in the third, illustrates the sexualised objectification that women universally endure. The feminist theorist, Laura Mulvey may identify this as women under patriarchal oppression are ‘dissected’ by the ‘dismemberment’ of the ‘male gaze’- a by-product of the patriarchy. However, Angelou subverts this with the use of hyperbolic sibilance, ‘stride’, ‘step’ and ‘span’ creating a preternatural representation of women’s physical limitations. The sexual connotations of ‘back// breast// waist’ created by the patriarchy are again subverted by Angelou to mythological allusions. The lexical field of the female form mirrors the visual elements of the S-curve- a sculptural technique, of the Greek Sculptures of the Goddesses Athena and Venus. The intertextual referencing to these “divine” women who are bestowed with deific connotations solidifies the semantic field of divinity in Phenomenal Woman. The collective term ‘woman’ creates an ambiguous character permitting applicability to all women universally; Angelou commented on how ‘each time a woman stands up for herself’ unknowingly ‘she stands up for all women’[14]. One could argue Angelou is participating in the Feminist concept of ‘female solidarity’ or ‘sisterhood’; Feminists see this as a critical element to bring freedom from the patriarchy. The repetition of ‘phenomenal’ in the refrain reinforces the multifarious ways women, in their quotidian experiences, can show an ethereal nature: akin to Athena and Venus through sharing a similar silhouette. Through Phenomenal Woman, Angelou explores the divine nature of women’s individual physical identity; the narrative voice becomes almost a martyr for women as a minority group. Angelou may be insinuating how women unanimously can indulge in being perchance earth's greatest gift.
In Still I Rise Angelou illustrates how resilience is vital to survive womanhood. Angelou depicts the systemic abuse of black women supporting Moya Bailey’s theory of misogynoir- the combination of misogyny and anti-blackness creating an individual experience of oppression. Through the tonality of the poem, Angelou challenges the ‘angry black woman' or ‘sapphire’ stereotype first reinforced by the ‘Amos ’n’ Andy’ show in the 1930s Jim Crow Era. Angelou subverts the misogynoir connotations of the aggressive demeanour of the ‘sapphire’ and instead through the simile ‘like dust//air, I’ll rise’ creates an image of a resilient and poised woman. The semantic field of celestial cyclical imagery of ‘moons’ and ‘sun’ links the experience of black women as something perpetual and inevitable. The narrative voice is characterised as having an aura of ‘certainty’ alongside the personification of ‘the tide’ conveying the persistence of these women in society. Angelou is catechizing the patriarchy’s treatment of women through the rhetorical questions 'Did you want to see me broken? // Does my sexiness upset you?’. The verbs ‘bowed’ and ‘lowered’ help Angelou emphasise black women's acquiescence to the patriarchy. However, Angelou challenges this through the imperative sentence ‘don’t you take it awful hard’ ordering her oppressor and reclaiming power in her own identity. The modal auxiliary ‘may’ illustrates the coerced consent of black women to the abuse of the patriarchy; the parallel syntax of ‘you may’ reminds readers of the incessant exploitation of women through the ages. Angelou portrays the power of ‘sexual[y] bashing’ misogynistic rhetoric through the noun ‘words’, as one of the methods of oppression. Van Zoonen’s theory of women being seen as a ‘sexual spectacle’ can be seen in the image of men’s ‘eyes’ as ‘cut[ting]’; this intrusive staring and mutilation of women through gazing is now seen as a form of sexual harassment. The enjambement and alliteration of ‘huts’ and ‘history’ create a high tempo transforming the poem into more of a dramatic monologue, a purging of emotion that black women withhold from, in fear of being seen as a ‘sapphire’. Angelou addresses the ‘past’ of these women being ‘rooted in pain’ for example: the sexual abuse of ‘slave girls’ in the Antebellum era of America and Black women’s exclusion from the 19th Amendment giving “all” women the vote in 1920. However, Angelou shows black women’s resilience to this through the natural imagery of the ‘black ocean’ and the continuous verbs 'welling and swelling’ showing their vitality and energy. Angelou declares she is the ‘dream and hope of the slave’; referencing Martin Luther King Jr’s iconic ‘I have a Dream’ speech or demanding a piece of the white American Dream which African American’s were denied a part of. Either of these references create an image of great resilience and courage against a racist and misogynistic government system; Angelou believed ‘courage is the most important of all the virtues’. The rhyming couplet of ‘gave//save’ with the anaphoric parallel syntax ‘I rise’ creates a joyful and epiphanic closing. This poem creates a harrowing insight into the experience of Black women in history and modern society casting them in a new and insightful light.
In conclusion, Angelou presents womanhood as beautiful but denied, an experience that the patriarchy would see faded and silenced, as seen in Mexico where 3,750 women were murdered in 2021 classing it as a femicide. The 2014 Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousufzai, a Pakistani feminism who focuses on the denial of education to women in the East, also remarked on how ‘women are denied’ and ‘neglected’ in her speech at the Clinton Global Citizens Awards; thus, highlighting the relevancy of Angelou’s message and its transcendence as feminism has evolved. Angelou communicates the experience of women as lacking personal agency but illustrates the patriarchy’s lack of succession in dulling the indomitable female spirit that challenges this violent oppression. Through these poems Angelou examines the power relations of this hierarchical structure of society based on gender politics, tearing them down and exploring the nature of the female world and its outlook. Angelou reconstructs her own perspective on the lost trials and tribulations of female experience, redefining it as a powerful experience to be celebrated and remembered.
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Caged Bird:
https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/maya-angelou/caged-bird
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Still I rise:
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Phenomenal woman:
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