Comparing In Search of Our Mothers Gardens and I Know Why the Caged Bi

In Search of Our Mothers Gardens and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Alice Walker and Maya Angelou are two contemporary African-American writers. Although almost a generation away in age, both women display a remarkable similarity in their lives. Each has pen about her experiences growing up in the bucolic South, Ms. Walker through her essays and Ms. Angelou in her autobiographies. Though they share similar backgrounds, individually has a unique style which gives to us, the readers, the gift of their exquisite humanity, with all of its frailties and strengths, joys and sorrows. catastrophe struck both of these women at the age of eight. Ms. Walker lost her resume in one eye. Ms. Angelou was raped. Each described the incident as position of a larger work. Ms. Walker related her experience in the eubstance of an essay published in her book, In Search of Our Mothers Gardens. Ms. Angelou told her story as a chapter in her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Although both wrote about their traumatic experience, the way each depicted the incident was distinct and seemed to be told for very different purposes. Alice Walker reports the facts to the reader with short sentences written in the present tense. She chooses words which elicit a forceful unrestrained response from her audience. For example, in telling how her brothers were given BB guns and she was not, Ms. Walker writes, Because I am a girl, I do not get a gun. Instantly, I am relegated to the position of Indian. The word relegated causes the reader to be irate and indignant. most people do not like being relegated to anything. Another voice of Ms. Walkers use of dynamic words can be found in her descrip... ...e with their help. Alice Walker and Maya Angelou are both extremely courageous writers. From each we get under ones skin a rare and poignant gift. As her book suggests, Alice Walker challenges us to search for resolution in the face of loneliness and despair. Maya Angelou, who knows why the caged fizzle sings, reminds us that loneliness and despair never have the last word. She quietly points us to a window of hope. Both women bless us with dark glasses of being human. Works Cited Angelou, Maya. I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. saucy York Bantam, 1993. Draper, James P., ed., et al. Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vol. 77. Detroit Gale Research Inc., 1993. Walker, Alice. In Search of Our Mothers Gardens. major Modern Essayists. Second Edition. Ed. Gilbert H. Muller with Alan F. Crooks. Englewood Cliffs Prentice Hall, 1994. 329-337.