Life Doesn't Frighten Me: Maya Angelou

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Multiple choice, short answer questions, and writing questions - you can print the unit along with the poem Life Doesn't Frighten Me" review activity printable - print all section questions at once (options for multiple keys) Poetic elements are used to enhance the intended impact of the seemingly simple texts. Maya Angelou has added a variety of powerful poetic diction to make her poem a worth read. She has used imagery, symbolism, metaphor, and various other literary elements to convey a message of fearlessness and confidence. To conclude, the use of imagery, repetition, personification, and magical elements in the poem helped the writer convey a message of fearlessness and confidence in facing life’s challenges. In the first stanza of ‘Life Doesn’t Frighten Me,’the speaker begins by taking note of the few things that might if she wasn’t so sure of her place in the world, frighten her. These are the “shadows on the wall” and the “noises down the hall”. The perfect rhyme that these lines and the others in this poem have, make each of these statements feel like a nursery rhyme. Something that its meant for a child to hear, read, or remember and take strength from.

The fourth stanza brings in “Dragons breathing fire” on her bedspread”. She isn’t afraid of those either.The fifth stanza is the longest of the poem with seven lines. It is followed by the sixth stanza which only has one line. When the speaker comes upon the things she mentioned in the first four stanzas she scares them off. She says “boo” and they “shoo”. They run when she makes fun of them and they fly away when she doesn’t cry. She stands up to everything custom-made to scare her. The following single line is a repetition of the refrain “Life doesn’t frighten me at all”. In the final stanza, the speaker adds a touch of magic to her fearlessness by mentioning a “magic charm” she keeps up their sleeve and her ability to walk the ocean floor without breathing. This use of magical elements adds a sense of fantasy and wonder to the poem and further reinforces the idea that the speaker is not afraid of anything. Conclusion Life Doesn’t Frighten Me’by Maya Angelou is a fourteen- stanza poem that is separated into uneven sets of lines. The stanzas range in length from one single line up to seven lines. The majority are tercets, meaning they have three lines. Angelou made use of a simple rhyme scheme within the text. The tercets mainly rhyme AAAA or AAB While the majority of the other stanzas make use of an alternating rhyme scheme of AABB. The reference to the ocean floor and not having to breathe is a masterstroke: note that she doesn’t say she can walk the ocean floor and still be able to breathe, but that she doesn’t have to breathe at all. This invites a seed of doubt into the poem: is it akin to holding one’s breath until a danger has passed, or is believed to have passed? Or should we take it at face value as an unequivocally positive image? Angelou makes use of several poetic techniques in ‘Life Doesn’t Frighten Me’. These include, but are not limited to, repetition, anaphora, alliteration, and enjambment. The first, repetition, is the use and reuse of a specific technique, word, tone or phrase within a poem. Angelou repeats the refrain, “frighten me at all” ten times in the poem. It often begins with “Life doesn’t” and other times starts with “They don’t” or “That doesn’t”. Anytime something is repeated so frequently a reader should take their time considering it and what it means to the poet.

Marouska Danial : it's an amazing poem it makes me feel like I can do anything its a powerful poem but also very interesting its sinks deep in my heart Maya Angelou was an amazing woman and this poem proves it more then u think to read it s couple times or even listen to her say it rest in peace Maya Angelou and thank you for everything you have done you are an amazingly nice and very powerful woman The poem begins with imagery of shadows on the wall and noises down the hall, setting a tone of eerie and unsettling surroundings. The poem’s imagery and repetition create a firm conviction in the speaker’s words. For instance, the use of vivid imagery helps her describe her actions in response to these supposed scares, such as “I go boo, make them shoo” and “I won’t cry, so they fly.” This imagery adds a playful and childlike tone to the poem, further emphasizing the speaker’s fearlessness. The last two lines of the eleventh stanza admit that she might sometimes be afraid, but it’s only in her dreams. There, she can’t control what she feels.

In the twelfth stanza of ‘Life Doesn’t Frighten Me’, she explains that she has a “magic charm” that keeps her from being scared. It’s always “up [her] sleeve”. It allows her to pass through life without giving in to the fear that strikes other children. The last four lines of the poem repeat the refrain twice and then reemphasize it with the line “Not at all” twice. Maya Angelou is an American author and poet. She has published seven autobiographies, five books of essays, and several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning more than fifty years. She has received dozens of awards and over thirty honorary doctoral degrees. Angelou is best known for her series of autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, tells of her life up to the age of seventeen, and brought her international recognition and acclaim. Angelou's list of occupations includes pimp, prostitute, night-club dancer and performer, castmember of the opera Porgy and Bess, coordinator for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, author, journalist in Egypt and Ghana during the days of decolonization, and actor, writer, director, and producer of plays, movies, and public television programs. Since 1982, she has taught at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she holds the first lifetime Reynolds Professorship of American Studies. She was active in the Civil Rights movement, and worked with both Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Since the 1990s she has made around eighty appearances a year on the lecture circuit, something she continued into her eighties. In 1993, Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Bill Clinton's inauguration, the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961. more… Angelou also makes use of anaphora, or the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of multiple lines, usually in succession. This technique is often used to create emphasis. A list of phrases, items, or actions may be created through its implementation. For example, the lines in stanza five that begin with “I” or the lines in stanza thirteen that begin with “Not”. There is in the second stanza a reference to the barking dogs and “big ghosts in a cloud”. None of these things frighten her either. The poem takes the reader into the mind of a child who has, or so she asserts, found a way to overcome fear in her life. She repeats the refrain“Life doesn’t frighten me at all” several times in these lines. It reminds the reader, and also reminds the speaker herself, what she’s trying not to feel. The speaker takes the reader through many of the normal things that might scare a child and dismisses each one. It is at the end of the poem that one might start to doubt the speaker’s honesty. Perhaps she is hiding a bit of the real fear she has in her heart.