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Universally Relatable... Home.

  • Hannah Dobrowski
  • Apr 8, 2016
  • 5 min read

As many tales go, “home is where the heart is”. This cliché proverb is something that revolves around many past time and current stories but does not always hold true. A common thematic question that comes with the idea of home is, what makes up a home? This question is the basis for everything that follows a home. After exploring many themes and examples of home, the depths and complexity of what makes up a home has become prevalent. In Maya Angelou’s poem “Africa” she suggests that violence and oppression pillage the idea of home. These acts of aggression transform the home from something beautiful and elegant into something tragic, before finally rising into a place of empowerment.

Maya Angelou was born in the late 1920’s in St. Louis, Missouri. Home was not something that was always relevant in her personal life. At a young age, her parents got divorced which pushed her to accompany her brother in a move to Arkansas to live with their Grandmother. As she grew up she experienced many instances of discrimination due to the color of her skin. These instances sparked her interest in working with famous figures such as Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X during the times of the civil rights movement. Working with these figures, she traveled to Africa for small periods of time (www.wikipedia.com). In doing so, she was able to form a passionate connection and have empathy towards the problems surrounding Africa. With that being said, she was able to rediscover her roots in home within Africa leading her to write a poem as a way to express those feelings.

Within the first stanza, Angelou hits many main points exemplifying the beauty that comes with the physical aspects of Africa. Africa to Angelou is where home is and she continues on to theoretically speak about Africa. Speaking in this way is how Angelou gives human characteristics to help describe such a vast piece of land given it depth and beautiful features. The tone in Angelou’s voice suggests that home is something of purity and elegance. With purity and elegance comes the view that Africa lays untouched and should be something that is extremely valuable. Relating back to the proverb, “home is where the heart is”, Angelou demonstrates the image of what that feels like for her. The simplistic musical tone that surrounds Angelou’s writing allows the reader to feel as if they have been in Africa themselves. For example she states, “sugarcane sweet/deserts her hair/golden her feet” (Angelou 2-4). Understanding these physical features and the way they are perceived lead into understanding what Angelou considers as home.

Continuing on from the first stanza, Maya goes on to a deeper level to describe the dark underlying problems that comes with home when something tragic occurs. Disrupting the home, an intruder comes in to disturb the peace and beauty killing off many individuals living within Africa. The tone of the poem takes a turn and suggests that home is not always safe. A surrounding theme of the second stanza deals with the question, what creates or destroys a home? Angelou indicates that home is disrupted by outsiders who do not hold the same views. She states, “sold her strong sons/ churched her with Jesus/ bled her with guns” (Angelou 14-15). Using these short but bold words, Angelou paints a powerful image about the hardships that occur throughout Africa. A specific strong word that was repeated in every stanza was, “Lain”. According to Webster-Merriam dictionary, “Lain” is the past participle of lie which has multiple meanings. In every stanza lain has a different meaning. In this paragraph Lain means, “to be in a helpless or defenseless place” (www.merriam-webster.com) which summarizes the stanza perfectly. Angelou repeatedly uses the word in every stanza to show the transformation from the peaceful rest in the first stanza, to the helpless state in the second stanza and finishing off in the third stanza using lain in the meaning of, “to remain at anchor or becalmed” (www.merriam-webster.com). Angelou’s well thought out word choice allows the reader to follow along in the evolution of her description of home.

Not only does this poem represent what destroys a home, but it also represents what creates a home. In Angelou’s last stanza, it talks about Africa and “her” uprising. Even after the tremendous loses and hardships, home always finds a way to come out on top. This is represented in lines 19-22 when she states, “Now she is rising/remember her pain/remember the loses/her screams loud and vain” (Angelou 19-22). The build up of these lines show the empowerment that she feels after coming out from something terrible. Home is typically described as a place of security and a place that gives you strength which is something that seems to lack at times in Africa. This last stanza shows how when hard times hit, sometimes we get lost in the meaning of home but when all is said and done, home will always be home. The rebirthing of Africa that is displayed in the last stanza gives purpose as to why Angelou chose to describe Africa as a woman. The actual physical act of birth or giving life, is only possible by a woman. In this poem, Africa is symbolized by a woman in many instances. It touches on the delicacy and beauty of a woman in the first stanza, the bravery and protectiveness in the second stanza and in the last stanza it touches on the empowerment and rebirthing. All of these features are seen throughout woman of all eras, especially the one in which this poem was written.

During the time this poem was written, the civil rights movement was on the rise and Angelou played a large role in being a civil rights activist. Not only does Angelou write this poem due to a connection to Africa, but she writes it as an empowering message to individuals all around. The rise of a beautiful Africa after a tragic event can be seen as an inspiration to many especially during the times of civil rights when hope was constantly being ripped away. During that time African American’s wanted to feel that sense of home in the United States that privileged white individuals held. They wanted to feel welcomed, safe and equal in the place that they lived in. The civil rights movement mirrored the event displayed in the poem “Africa”. The series of both movements went from something beautiful to something tragic and continued on to bounce back and rebirth into something powerful which Angelou displayed in her universally relatable views of home.

Works Cited

"Maya Angelou." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 05 Apr. 2016.

Webster. "Merriam Webster Dictionary." Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 05 Apr. 2016.

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