Maya Angelou’s “Champion of the World” Essay
Updated: Jun 4th, 2019
The story has a home setting, which is a good depiction that most people throb for; a better, safe place to embark on after the long day activities. The author utilizes the power of narration to bring out an extremely interesting diction just as Martin Luther King did in his “I have a dream” speech as written by Eidenmuller (2008).
They both make a common theme of racial differences come out lively. Using descriptive strategy for the events, Maya is able to capture the readers, drawing them to feel as part of the action. She takes a perspective of an outsider to analyze the white Americans life in relation to Africa Americans. This is a concept that assists her to avoid describing personal inner feelings and capture the reader’s implicitly to experience the events.
The author uses the narration of a fight as a literal symbolism of struggle against racial injustice. It also and gives a faster style of unfolding the events to trigger emotions. The most important aspect of the narration is its emphasis over the power of having a personal reflection and the importance of sharing. (Angelou, 4, 1993)
Sharing makes one stronger and as the author makes the narration, she drains her emotions in the writing; therefore, the process is a therapeutic experience of confronting racial oppression. The aspect of equity is evident today especially in leadership, people share experiences orally with friends and thus enhance the bond and common factors, consequently triggering the aspect of equality. People belong to a common human race and thus should enjoy bonded lives through shared events.
The irony at the end of Maya’s narration is the way she brings forth the aspect of happiness. People feel and know better than they had. They feel spiritually and morally motivated than they did in the beginning. Her ending is equally triumph because logically as she hints, the fight is merely a diminutive victory because the problems the people have are still there and will still be present in their lives until they fight to feel morally uplifted.
Like the poem “Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes, Maya’s narration is ironic because it utilizes the negative aspects to oppress racial injustice and violation of rights. The outcome is an absolute change of events while the racial perception comes slowly.
An act may be very hidden or isolated but if it is a hurting one, it continuously reverberates within in an immeasurable manner until people address the matter. I her narrations (4, 1993), Angelou references defeat to the historical injustice but these are however small events that cannot champion the victory over obstacles licked to the racial backgrounds.
Angelou has an oppressing feeing as a white young African-American woman fighting racial discrimination and segregation, in a white society especially before the establishment of the civil rights movements. One would expect a caged bird to sing a song of powerlessness or defeat but it is still as vibrant as before with a strong hope of freedom. Her narration provides hope for the oppressed but still emphasizes the need for struggle.
In his poem “Dream Deferred” (1996), Langston Hughes takes in hand the query over the outcome of a destroyed dream. A strong imagery depicts the impact, which has a negative and vicious ending for that person who is not able to dream any more. In comparison to “I have dream” Speech by Martin Luther King, Jn, Langston Hughes writes of African Americans struggle for equity.
By pondering the outcome from a destroyed dream, like Maya Angelous in the “champion of the world” he illustrates many negative possible outcomes such as “a raisin in the sun,” symbolizing hardening of the heart. Second symbolism shows infection to the mind and thirdly, the rotten meat image. All this aspects describes incomplete dreams.
These are the various outcomes a dream has for driving people to accomplishments. Jeopardizing the dream gives negative results. All the three writers lived racial lifestyles thus the call for people to face racism. Allowing personal dreams to explode gives different thoughts thus making life better. The three writing “I Know Why the Caged Bird sings,” “Dream Deferred,” and the “I Have a Dream” speech, have a similarity in encouraging people to find equality by fighting injustice.
Work Cited
Angelou, M. “Champion of the World,” I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. 1993. Bantam Books publishers.
Eidenmuller, Michael E. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “I Have a Dream.”Delivered 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C. McGraw-Hill. 2008. Retrieved from <https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm>
Langston Hughes: A Dream Deferred. 1996. Web.
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