Do you bask reading autobiographies? All God ‘s kids need going places by Maya Angelou is an inspiring life narrative that will capture your attending. This autobiography was foremost published in 1986 by Random House, New York. It is a non-fiction and a memoir piece of work comprising of 208 pages. A memoir involves a more intimate focal point of the writer ‘s feelings, emotions and memories which makes it somewhat different from an autobiography. This book study about this memoir is meant to be descriptive. You might be inquiring what led me to read this book and make up one’s mind to roll up this study. First, I like the writer Maya Angelou who has proven against all odds to be a really gifted author, actress, poet, vocalist and militant amongst her many accomplishments. She spoke and recited a verse form ‘On the pulsation of the forenoon ‘ at the inuguration ceremonial of President Clinton in the United States in 1993 and has received assorted awards. Second, autobiographies capture my attending as they are meant to animate the audience.
Maya Angelou was born in 1928 and has written a series of autobiographies, All God ‘s kids need going places being her fifth volume. ( Drew 18 ) provinces that her autobiographical plants provide powerful penetrations into the development of black adult females in the twentieth century. This autobiographical history begun with, I know why caged birds sings ( 1970 ) and other volumes in the series include ; Gather together in my name ( 1974 ) , Singin ‘ and Swingin ‘ and acquiring merry like Christmas ( 1976 ) , The bosom of a adult female ( 1981 ) , All God ‘s kids need going places ( 1986 ) and A vocal flung up to heaven ( 2002 ) . Throughout her five-volume series, a assortment of functions and experiences have been clearly brought out such as ; silenced black kid life in the American South, a colza victim, a girl, a female parent, terpsichorean, actress, married woman, vocalist, composer, decision maker, manager and an Afro-american life in West Africa. In add-on to the autobiographical plant, she besides has written legion verse forms and received over 30 honorary grades.
Autobiographical plants
Maya Angelou loves composing and it is apparent in the continuity of the books she has written. ( Drew 18 ) suggests that her pieces of plants reads like a fresh owing to her ability to craft linguistic communication in prose that reads easy in paragraph signifier yet frequently sounds similar poesy. This implies that she possesses attractive and impressive profusion of linguistic communication. The first book, I know why the caged birds sings, focal points on her childhood old ages that were full of humiliations. She was born Marguerite Annie Johnson in St.Louis, Missouri, her male parent was a cook and a female parent was a existent estate agent every bit good as nurse. Her parents divorced at the age three and she was brought up by her grandma in Stamps, Arkansas. She became a victim of colza at a stamp age by her female parent ‘s fellow, Mr. Freeman. This episode ends with the birth of her kid, Guy. Her boy ‘s birth therefore can be viewed every bit symbolically as stand foring the birth of another interesting text, Gather together in my name. She narrates this following volume as a sort of a battle to convey up a kid who is born out of marriage. She besides tries to execute her functions good as both a female parent and an creative person. The chief subject in this book being survival ; against all favoritisms whether racial or gender-based.
The following volume focuses on Angelou ‘s matrimony and was considered a period of stableness for her and her boy, though it was short since they divorced after five old ages. She was married to Tosh Angelou, a former crewman. She went back to dance and toured Africa and Europe though she felt guilt at pretermiting her lone kid. ( Drew 19 ) writes that the bosom of a adult female finds Angelou active in the civil rights motion as an militant and besides married once more though she finally gets divorced. Guilty feelings of disregard of her kid continue to be displayed in this volume.
In, All God ‘s kids need going places, Angelou becomes wholly involved in her hunt for a symbolic place and her esteem for Ghana. She revels in the verve of the native and the exile peoples she meets. She bonds with landscape and the history of the state ( Lyman 110 ) . This volume addresses Angelou ‘s pursuit for her lineage in Africa. The characters in this volume are beyond the household members, unless for Angelou and her boy, Guy. All the volumes reveals the assorted obstructions such as racism and subjugation that Angelou went through in her pursuit to a knowing and inspiring black adult female.
The scene of the book
This autobiography is a signifier of travel authorship and the action takes topographic point in West Africa, Ghana in 1960s when Angelou arrives from the States. Specific locations in Ghana include the capital metropolis Accra, university of Ghana where her boy enrolls for his grade and Keta which is the small town that the authoress visits at the terminal of her stay in Ghana.
The secret plan sum-up
This book is the 5th installment in a series of capturing narrative memoirs by Ms. Angelou. It chiefly focuses on her stay in Africa while in an effort to detect every bit Africa as her ‘home ‘ . It is a life narrative of Maya and her seventeen-year old boy, Guy whom she brings to Africa to inscribe for his surveies at the University of Ghana after the recovery from an accident that is captured in the old series. Partly it is travel composing by Angelou that enables her to retrieve her sense of self-worth ensuing from the divorce procedure she undergoes in the bosom of a adult female.
The book begins with a sad episode of a long delay for her boy ‘s recovery from a auto accident and her hopes have been melting owing to the possibility of Guy ‘s decease displayed in the undermentioned statement
‘July and August of 1962 stretched out like fat work forces yawning after a deluxe dinner. They had every right to triumph, for they had eaten me up. Gobble me down. Consumed my spirit, non in a wild haste, but easy, with the obscene forbearance of certain of certain masters. I became a shadow walking in the white hot streets, and a dark apparition in the infirmary ( 4 ) .
Finally Guy does retrieve and Angelou secures a occupation at the Institute of African surveies in Accra and she temporarily feels comfy while populating with the people of the African roots who accept her. She writes ‘we were Black Americans in West Africa, where for the first clip in our lives the colour of our tegument was accepted as right and normal ( Angelou 3 ) ” Although she meets many friends and travels to the interior parts of Ghana to detect the African civilizations, she still has problem accommodating to her new manner of life. The concluding scene of the book is at the Accra airdrome as Angelou goes back to the provinces. The closing of this book finds Guy, a college pupil who has become independent and is being separated from his female parent. Angelou refers to him as an African prince who ‘stood, looking like a immature Godhead of summer, directly, certain among his Ghanaians comrades ( Angelou 208 ) ‘
Angelou therefore returns to the United States holding been convinced that place is non a physical or a geographical location such as Africa but instead it is a psychological province. She is delighted to larn that her endurance depends upon happening herself within herself, have oning her traveling places, like all God ‘s kids.
The characters in the autobiography
Unlike her old volumes that were characterized with the household characters, this volume accommodates characters beyond her household such as friends and the roomies whom they rent an flat together. Chief Characters in the narrative include ; A Maya Angelou, Guy, Julian Mayfield, Ana Livia, Vicki Garvin, Alice Windom, Kwame Nkrumah, Kojo and Malcolm X. Maya is both the storyteller and the chief character in this memoir. Guy is her boy who is enrolled at the University of Ghana. He dates a adult female who is a twelvemonth older than her female parent and when her female parent gets to cognize about this matter she threatens to crush up her boy. Maya ‘s character in this memoir is tested and determined through her confrontations with her boy. Guy is speedy to courteously take a firm stand on his liberty by naming her ‘little female parent ‘ ( Angelou 149 ) . She is lacerate between desiring to allow her boy travel and supervising him as a protective female parent.
Vicki Garvin and Alice Windom are the black adult females whom they portion a cottage. They are educated but neither of them is able to procure an employment that reflects on their abilities and they are a mark of favoritism on the footing of gender. Kojo is the small town male child they hire to make family jobs in their cottage and he is an evident option for Guy who has now grown and shacking in the university residence hall. Julian Mayfield is an writer and a journalist together with his married woman, Anna Livia represents Angelou ‘s friendly relationships with the African Americans. Malcolm X is a Angelou ‘s friend who assists her to see racism in a more open-minded mode. President Kwame Nkrumah offered African Americans a lasting residence and Angelou refers to him as the ‘first American Black rational ‘ ( Angelou 124 )
Main subjects
In, All God ‘s kids need going places, Angelou brings out important subjects including ; credence, racism, endurance and maternity. The subject of maternity is good potrayed in this piece of work as Angelou struggles to be a responsible female parent. She secures a occupation and enrolls her boy in one of the best universities in Ghana. She threatens to strike Guy when she discovers that he is holding an matter with a adult female older than herself. Therefore at the terminal of the book, Guy is viewed as an African prince whom his female parent is proud of his upbringing and accordingly has identified with his lineage. This subject is besides displayed in her hunt for her fatherland, Africa that led her to settle in Ghana for a find of her roots.
The subject of racism is brought out in all the autobiographical books that Angelou. ( Hagen 113 ) writes that as Angelou narrates the episodes in this book, she opens her eyes to the bias among assorted black groups and faces the realisation that racism is non confined to the Whites merely. Racism is a major obstruction that Angelou faced right from her childhood as she was brought up in a black community. This is compounded by the two colza experiences with Freeman who threatens to kill her brother in instance she discloses the information to the parents. Another incident of racism is displayed in the book ; I know why the caged birds sing. ( Lupton 68 ) reveals the white tooth doctor ‘s comment that he would ‘rather lodge his manus in a Canis familiaris ‘s oral cavity than in a nigga ‘s ‘ . This statement depicts the deepness of racism that made Angelou believe that racism is dominant among the Whites. In this volume, she realizes that racism is non merely about white versus inkinesss or inkinesss versus white, but it implies any bias based on either skin coloring material or descent. Any group of people can be racist on the footing of one ground or the other.
Credence is besides a cardinal subject in this book as Angelou narrates her hunt for a place where she can happen unconditioned credence. Her hunt is meant to populate and interact with people who did non know apart her on the footing of her skin coloring material. Angelou found that place in Ghana where she was treated with small favoritism unlike in her American place where she experienced a humiliating childhood life. Though she is an American, she felt more accepted in Ghana, West Africa.
Survival is another major subject that is revealed throughout all the volumes of autobiographies that Angelou has authored. The favoritisms and the supplanting that she has been through when she makes her pilgrim’s journey to Africa in hunt of her lineage strengthens her and enables her to go forth Africa as more enlightened individual. She survives through all these adversities and learns that any individual can be a racialist for one ground or the other. Another major lesson that she learns is that the hunt for a geographical topographic point as a ‘home ‘ is instead deceptive since she realizes it is all about the interior ego ; the dignity that contributes to overall one ‘s security.
Growth, development and instruction
All God ‘s kids need going places is a book that focuses on the growing, development and instruction of Maya Angelou as a life long scholar. The old volumes reveal the obstructions that she faced from her childhood to her calling development in early maturity and finally to her determination to seek for her roots. ( Lupton 142 ) suggests that the secret plan of this volume begins in Ghana and ends with Angelou ‘s determination to return to America therefore stoping both the series and the journey.
Angelou matures in her function of maternity to his boy, Guy. In the old volumes, she neglected Guy and she felt guilty about it. She realizes that she needs to foster her boy well and makes a determination ne’er to go forth him under the attention of other people. The determination to remain in Ghana is partially to inscribe her boy at the University of Ghana. As a responsible female parent there is assorted feelings of love and struggles, she wants to allow him travel and at the same clip she feels he needs her supervising. This is revealed when she writes ‘he ‘s gone. My lovely small male child is gone and will ne’er return ‘ ( Angelou 186 ) when Guy decides to remain in the university residence hall. With clip she understands that he needs liberty to do his ain determination refering his life. As Angelou leaves for America and Guy decides to shack in Ghana, she is proud female parent who feels that she has vastly contributed wellbeing of her boy.
She besides grows and develops into an liberated black adult female. From a shy and humiliated miss, she rises against all odds to be most celebrated American author and poet. She is no longer a victim of use by fine-looking work forces but an self-asserting person who is able to stand her land no affair the prevailing fortunes. She has received assorted awards based on her plants meant to liberate adult females in her society.
Angelou develops into a loyal American. She is satisfied and accepts herself as an American. This stems from her pilgrim’s journey in Ghana that enabled her to understand racism in an unfastened minded mode by recognizing that no group of people should be wholly be labeled as racialists since any individual can be one. This realisation has been important in constructing her dignity or self-pride that was lost in her early childhood. Angelou ‘s ‘double consciousness: her American and African egos ‘ develop through her strong friendly relationships with the black adult females every bit good as the African-Americans in Ghana ( Angelou 113 ) . As she leaves Ghana, the American ego is dominant.
Latha reveals that she besides matures in character and in composing as this stay in Africa enables her to take the narratives of Africa back with her to the United States. This has led to her infinite interviews on telecasting, in periodicals and in the popular imperativeness every bit good as the legion plants that she authors on the inkinesss. Latha argues that the verse form that she delivers on the startup of President Bill Clinton is a powerful piece of work that reflects on her secular wise adulthood, the wisdom and cognition that is being attributed to the countless places she has been.
In decision, All God ‘s Children demand going places, is an autobiographical work that sums up the inspiring life history of Maya Angelou that begun in I know why the caged birds sings where her childhood is characterized by supplanting and hopelessness. This volume depicts Angelou as holding developed as a adult female, female parent, American and besides in character in composing. Traveling places as used in the rubric of the book depicts her sojourning in Africa in hunt for a symbolic place. My really concluding idea refering this memoir is that it is educative, interesting and inspiring and I would urge it for reading. Other than the smooth flow of events, the profusion of linguistic communication in this book is an of import facet to observe as you read this book. One facet that I do non wish about this book is theme on racism. At the beginning of the volume, Angelou has a perceptual experience that racism involves inkinesss and Whites but towards the terminal of her pilgrim’s journey in Ghana, she discovers that anyone can be a racialist for one ground or the other.
