LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 23:9 September 2023
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

Celebrate India!
Unity in Diversity!!

HOME PAGE

Click Here for Back Issues of Language in India - From 2001

Poetic Encounter
Available in https://www.amazon.in/dp/B09TT86S4T

Poems
Naked: the honest browsings of two brown women
Available in https://www.amazon.in

Decrees
Available in https://www.amazon.com

BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ AND DOWNLOAD FREE!

REFERENCE MATERIALS

BACK ISSUES

  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports in Microsoft Word to languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.

  • PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES GIVEN IN HOME PAGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIST OF CONTENTS.

  • Your articles and book-length reports should be written following the APA, MLA, LSA, or IJDL Stylesheet.

  • The Editorial Board has the right to accept, reject, or suggest modifications to the articles submitted for publication, and to make suitable stylistic adjustments. High quality, academic integrity, ethics and morals are expected from the authors and discussants.

Copyright © 2023
M. S. Thirumalai

Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
11249 Oregon Circle
Bloomington, MN 55438
USA
Custom Search

The Black Tales: Stories of the Struggle of African Americans in the Poetry of Maya Angelou

Dabinjoy Tripura


Courtesy: www.amazon.com

Abstract

Although Maya Angelou is an American by her nationality, her craftsmanship in poetry writing makes her a global citizen. The simple yet thoughtful subject matters of her poetry, selection of lucid language, toning down the burning issues of the modern world etc. appeal literary lovers across the world to read her poetry. The present researcher makes an effort to recount the untold stories of the lives of African Americans: the dark past, unstable present and surviving skills in an unhealthy social setup.

Keywords: Maya Angelou, African Americans, black narrative, American literature, social hegemony, racial discrimination.

1. Introduction

A born artist in true sense Maya Angelou was a master of whatever form of art she engaged herself with. She was equally successful as a dancer, singer, actor and film director, but she scaled the summit of popularity as a poet. Her rise as a successful poet was not a straightforward journey however. Everything that she owned in her life came as a token of hard-fought battle against unhealthy circumstances. Angelou grew up with her maternal grandmother after the separation of her parents. She fell prey to sexual assault by her mother’s lover at a tender age of eight. At that point of time, she was not able to understand how uneven the society she belonged to was. She could not even rationalise why the culprit was sent behind the bar and eventually killed later on. It led the little girl Maya to forget to speak for six long years. However, resembling the proverb, “better late than never” Angelou realised the hardships of life that she had left behind.

All those traumatic experiences got their due expression in her verse. Her poems are not mere form art, they are rather a medium to retrospect the dark past, inspect the unstable present and establish future prospects of the lives of African Americans. Angelou attempts to tell hundreds of untold stories which the Black people dislike to live over again. This article promises to offer a collective tale of the sufferings of the African Americans as projected by the poet in her verses.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Dabinjoy Tripura
Research Scholar, Department of English
Tripura University
Agartala, Madhupur, Tripura 799022, India
scholardabin01@gmail.com
Custom Search
  • Click Here to Go to Creative Writing Section

  • Send your articles
    as an attachment
    to your e-mail to
    languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Please ensure that your name, academic degrees, institutional affiliation and institutional address, and your e-mail address are all given in the first page of your article. Also include a declaration that your article or work submitted for publication in LANGUAGE IN INDIA is an original work by you and that you have duly acknowledged the work or works of others you used in writing your articles, etc. Remember that by maintaining academic integrity we not only do the right thing but also help the growth, development and recognition of Indian/South Asian scholarship.