Maya Angelou, who was an African-American modern woman poet, manifested the belief that a poet’s job is to help the moral standards of her culture and society to elevate.
“I would like to be known as an intelligent woman, a courageous woman, a loving woman, who teaches by being.”
Here, as a truth can be deduced, Angelou hadn’t only been a literary scholar-believer: Viewing the form of poetry (literature) as a compelling conditional tool for liberty and magnificence; a tool that could have love embedded in itself for confronting the major conflicts of race, sex, gender, and social-cultural backgrounds.
As a pioneering woman of classicism and reasonable persuasion, Angelou wrote her Phenomenal Woman in 1995. Her poem, if looked upon through a certain single way, in particular, is to be observed as taking a stance against the manifested and practiced global patriarchal orientation: Feeding women with segregatory/ discriminatory beliefs and biases— the proposition defining womanhood with insufficiency.
Given that in the first place of the poem, the speaker calls upon the notion of “pretty women wonder…”, might in effect probe the reader’s mind with the assumption of it being an allusion to the white feminists: Which calls for a struggle that had the ‘feminism’ terminology been created to only include white women, then a switch to the notion of womanism may, in effect, resolve the misunderstanding, emphasizing inclusion instead.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms,
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Pehnomenally (lines: 5- 11) I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
The palm of my hand,
The need for my care.
‘Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally (lines: 52- 58).
The two extracts are taken from the starting and finishing stanzas of Phenomenal Woman. As can be detected, reflected in them are the sexist, woman-hating notions that significantly outburst as the result of male-domineering suppressions during 1990s. Angelou turns the two sides of the table here: The woman’s body is incredibly celebrated, elevated, and intensified. Looked more closely, the can-be drawn conclusion directly points out to the choice of vocabulary consumed by Angelou: The preserved simplicity throughout the lines connotes how mundane the woman is observed through the lens of male beholders. Yet, as if— because that is the notion constantly driving the men at— the woman is condemned by the male dominance to be either a celibate agent; that is, to keep and prove her ongoing virginity (unspoiled). Or, as best put in by Gilbert and Gubar, that a woman’s sole function is to be seductive, on the other hand. In that case, the woman misled and manipulated into an intercourse has no one to blame for or “shout at”, because she is the Madwoman in the Attic.
It’s true that the Phenomenal Woman is crafted to embody simple language; however, that mustn’t cause the reader to underestimate what treasure it’s withholding:
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery (lines: 30- 34).
Here, Angelou’s literature gets genuinely literary and artful due to the mystical ambiance it creates. Angelou, as can be observed throughout her cannon, implements large feminine motives and employs empowered woman characteristics to eradicate the prior myths that cloud the idea of a woman. She basically struggles to, through reasonable persuasion, make the women’s communities realize and rediscover their autonomy. By the speaker’s “inner mystery”, she’s delivering a high stature to the female populace in that they have the power of keeping their individual from the abuses and misconducts of the male communities.
In the following section, she wrestles with creating ambiguous relations between words that lavish praise upon a woman’s being: at the same time, connoting how women, in general, are seen obsolete by men. So since, they’ve never really delved into making discoveries about womanhood, then it’s about time that they experience a rhythmic glance at this unfathomable subject of theirs, even though she (the speaker) is leading her speech with enigma. Her bearing suggests, ‘High probable is that even with this simple discourse: “The fellows [will] stand or/ Fall down on their knees (lines: 17, 18)” without an iota of comprehending what a woman is!’:
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally (lines: 37- 43).
One of the other strategic performances of Angelou, whether to men’s delight or spite, but nevertheless, making them turn inside out, is a selective use of devices which come once together are as if introducing a being of a very far-fetched kind:
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally (lines: 21-27).
There, Maya Angelou has drawn a surrealistic analysis that not only does glorify the idea of being a woman, also- as in her words- standing for the rights of all women throughout the age and history. Her hope thus lies in the regard to which a woman may ascend and acquire rights as equal as to her male counterpart. Women may have been charming and have charmed lots of men for over centuries, but it’s a protesting manoeuvre against that which concludes women enigmatic and withstands unattending to feminist rights. But that doesn’t make the whole section ironic, although it’s a strive to sincerely “become” who a woman is!
Angelou, Maya. “Phenomenal Woman”. Poetry Foundation. Phenomenal Woman | The Poetry Foundation.
Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. Pearson, 5th ed. 2011: p.p. 154, 155.
Manning, Margaret. “What Kind of Woman Are You? One Of My Favorite Maya Angelou Quotes”. Sixty+Me. March, 2016. What Kind of Woman Are You? One of My Favorite Maya Angelou Quotes | Sixty and Me.
“Maya Angelou”. Poetry Foundation. Maya Angelou | The Poetry Foundation.
Maytham Khaghani
