Order Out of Chaos: The Autobiographical Works of Maya AngelouA study of the autobiographical writing of Maya Angelou is significant not only because it offers insights into personal and group experience in America, but also because it has created a unique place within Black autobiographical tradition. While the burden of Angelou's autobiography is essentially a recapturing of her own subjective experiences from early childhood to adulthood, the intent of the work is to describe the influences - personal and cultural, historical and social - that have shaped her life. In this book, Dolly McPherson provides readings of the five-volume serial autobiography (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Gather Together in My Name, Singin'and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas, The Heart of a Woman, and All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes). Through these readings, she examines the recurring themes and the techniques Angelou employs to articulate these themes, and connects her to both the Black American and the dominant American cultural traditions. In the final chapter, McPherson assesses Angelou's significance in Black autobiography. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Autobiography as an Evocation of the Spirit | 7 |
Initiation and SelfDiscovery | 21 |
Copyright | |
7 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Order Out of Chaos: The Autobiographical Works of Maya Angelou Dolly A. Macpherson No preview available - 1991 |
Common terms and phrases
accept adolescence adult African Angelou recalls Angelou writes Angelou's autobiography Anne Moody Arkansas Aunt auto autobiog autobiographer's autobiographical form autobiographical writing awareness Bailey becomes Black American Black Autobiographical Tradition Black Boy Black community Caged Bird Sings California child childhood Children Need Traveling church consciousness cultural dream environment experience fantasy feelings Gather gelou Ghana God's Children Need Grandmother Baxter Grandmother Henderson growing Heart Hellman human humor individual James Baldwin journey Lillian Hellman lives look Louis Malcolm Malcolm X Mama maturity Maya Angelou Maya Angelou's Maya's narrative Need Traveling Shoes one's painful pattern Porgy and Bess quest race reality relationship remember Rosa Guy San Francisco scene sense servant slave social South speak spirit Stamps story survival Swingin talk themes truth Uncle Willie University of Ghana Vivian Baxter voice volume W.E.B. DuBois Wake Forest University White Americans women York young Maya