Essay on Maya Angelou as a Phenomenal Woman

In my presentation today, I will be first speaking as a judge who will introduce Maya Angelou’s lawyer who will be played by me after the introduction from the judge.

Ladies and gentlemen of the court, today’s hearing will be on the charges made by Maya Angelou against a group of men who have been accused of the mental abuse of Ms. Angelou over many years. We will be hearing from Angelou’s lawyer, Ms Jessica Ta in today’s session.

Save your time!
We can take care of your essay

• Proper editing and formatting
• Free revision, title page, and bibliography
• Flexible prices and money-back guarantee

Place an order

I’m sure everyone in this courtroom has heard of my client, Maya Angelou, who fought for the rights of African Americans alongside many important people. Perhaps you have all read one of her astonishing poems, but did you understand how powerfully emotional they are? My client has written about many topics including love. Now, love isn’t all sunshine and rainbows as I am sure we have all experienced, we know that it is filled with just as much pain and hurt as it is with happiness and that is why I am fighting here today, prosecute these men who mentally abused Ms. Angelou and to get justice for my client who has hidden her pain for far too long. The pieces of evidence I will present to the jury today will be what documents the pain my client has faced best, her poetry. It is that Angelou’s interpretation of love can be seen through the use of the motif of an endless cycle that shows her pain in her poems.

The first piece of evidence I would like to submit to the court is a poem titled, ‘They Went Home’ which begins with my client speaking of these men who spoke about how amazing she was and how they, ‘never once in all their lives, had known a girl like me’. Ms. Angelou incorporates the physical and mental traits that these men loved about her, but it then transitions into the true intent of what these men wanted: they wanted to use her body to have a purely physical relationship. It is evident that these men cheated on their wives as portrayed in the line, ‘They went home and told their wives’ and they even manipulated my client, showering her with praises of, ‘no word [she] spoke was ever mean’, ‘[her] house was licking clean’ and that she had, ‘an air of mystery’. Her, ‘praises were on all men’s lips’ which was just what they had to say to take advantage of my client. But they didn’t just use my client for their pleasures once, they did this over and over again through a cycle shown in her writing through the repetition of, ‘But…They went home’ which can be seen in the first two stanzas and just a single, ‘But…’ in the last stanza which clearly shows that my client was expecting the men to go home as they did the previous times only to come back again after, ‘they’d spend one night, or two or three’. Now you may be wondering: if she knew that these men weren’t going to give her love but instead, use her for something else, then why did she always let them into her life? Well, what you don’t realize is that my client was deeply pained by this already, which can be seen through the last line of this poem, ‘But…’ which almost confirms what she doesn’t want to admit herself: that they went home, leaving my client feeling defeated once again, left feeling loss, hurt and betrayed, hoping they would change. These men just took advantage of her vulnerability for sex. My client was only attempting to fill in an empty void in her life and she was blind sighted by these men. There was never an emotional connection which is what my client truly needed.

The next piece of evidence I will present to the jury is a poem titled, ‘Late October’ which follows on from the endless cycle seen in, ‘They Went Home’. This poem portrays the feeling of dissatisfaction my client feels towards love. In this piece, Angelou utilizes the symbolism of Autumn with the use of colors and physical attributes associated with the season as shown in the first stanza which illustrates Autumn leaves that, ‘sprinkle down the tinny’ suggesting the coming of colder harsher moments such as Winter, or more likely, the coming of harsher moments for my client herself. Furthermore, the following line, ‘sound of little dyings’ refers to the sound of living things dying such as the leaves of moreover, the sound of Ms. Angelou struggling to live. Additionally, the lines, ‘of ruddy sunsets/of roseate dawns’ were written by my client and are contrasted as the warm, red, and rose-y colors, ‘roil ceaselessly in/cobweb greys and turn/to black/for comfort.’ This transition of color moves into a more serious topic: the effects that these men had on my client’s life. My client turned to these men in search of something more, only to be left with finding comfort in their darkness. The next stanza speaks of another endless cycle as shown in the lines, ‘Only lovers/see the fall/a signal end to endings’ which implies that only people who have experienced love will know the true meaning of it and that to Ms. Angelou, is that it is something that never lasts. My client even attempts to warn people of this mistake of falling in love because she is so pained by her own horrific experiences of love inflicted upon her by these men. She calls out to the oblivious couples that are unaware of the ‘gruffish gesture alerting’ them to stop the love and passion they feel before it is too late, and the cycle becomes never-ending, stopping only, ‘to begin again’. My client’s background and history of being hurt by these men who supposedly ‘loved’ her, has had a drastic effect on how she perceives love.

My client has faced many losses in her life which can reflected in this next piece of evidence titled, ‘No Loser, No Weeper’ which I will also bring in the context of my client herself. Loss is the main theme expressed by Ms. Angelou as she touches on her drastic thoughts which go to the extent of even thinking about committing suicide due to the loss of items that seem so small and trivial. Ms Angelou reflects on her childhood traumas through this poem which introduces the theme of suicide in the first stanza where my client states, ‘I hate to lose something… even a dime, I wish I was dead’. These two lines create an eerie tone as Ms. Angelou continues to reveal her sentimental and painful memories with these items. Moving onto the next stanza which focuses on losing a doll as a child, the line, ‘She could open her eyes, and do all but speak.’ Refers to a painful part of my client’s childhood. At the young at of eight, Ms. Angelou was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. After she had found out that her rapist was beaten to death, frightened by the power of her own words, Ms. Angelou did not speak for the next five years of her life because she was so scared of the trauma she had gone through. Slowly, she rebuilt her trust and began to speak once more. She danced and sang and performed in theatres. But again like a cycle, she faced another setback. At the age of 16, my client fell pregnant and had a child. She got involved in nightclubs and drugs and felt so lost in life. It is clear that my client has lost so much of her childhood and so many opportunities to live a normal life and she hated losing the things she loved, which she emphasized through the use of the repetition of, ‘I hate to lose something’. In the same stanza, the lines, ‘I believe she was taken, by some doll-snatching sneak.’ Incorporates the symbolism of a doll which represents Ms. Angelou’s virginity. The ‘doll-snatching sneak’ was the man that raped her and stole her, the’doll’ that she lost. Additionally, the second stanza is where Ms. Angelou writes about the concept of time, referring to another item she lost. A watch that, ‘[got] up and walked away’ implying that time was out of her control.

Being raised in America as an African-American woman was already so difficult and came with many disadvantages and Ms. Angelou lost so much from a young age that was out of her control. The line, ‘I’ll never forget it’ clearly shows the extent of the pain suffered by my client to the point where she will remember it for the rest of her life. Furthermore, the loss of these items is compared to the loss of my client, ‘lover-boy’ in which she is speaking to a woman whom she thinks her lover cheated on her with. The tone in this stanza changes from the previous stanzas and it is now almost angry even though Ms. Angelou says to this lady, ‘I ain’t threatening you, madam, but he is my evening’s joy.’ This suggests that the grief felt from the loss of the man my client loved is just as painful as the loss of the dime, doll, and watch. Again, my client repeats the same line and ends her piece with, ‘And I mean I hate to lose something’. Ms. Angelou is indeed threatening this woman as she is clinging on to the one thing she is afraid of losing, her, ‘lover-boy’. This piece can be linked to ‘Late October’ as they both portray my client’s desperate need for stability in a relationship and to escape the endless cycles she has been through.

From the evidence that I have provided, it is clear that the amount of loss and pain inflicted upon Ms. Angelou by these men will never fade. Ms. Angelou doesn’t interpret love as this wonderful feeling that it should be, but rather, as a feeling that only causes her pain and hurt. Every poem I presented to you today has the motif of an endless cycle that my client has gone through, trying to find the love she needs and deserves, but each time, she ends up alone and hurt. And it is because of these men that Ms. Angelou is afraid to be exposed to even the idea of love because it doesn’t give her anything in return but pain. I cannot emphasise the amount of pain Ms. Angelou has been through but I hope you will bring her the justice she deserves. These men standing in this court today need to be prosecuted immediately and you have the power to do that, to lock up men who used an innocent woman and neglected her.