Rhetorical Analysis Of Maya Angelou s I Know Why The...

Fily Thiam English 002 Mrs. Vilato 9 April 2015 Rhetorical Analysis on â€Å"Graduation† by Maya Angelou In Graduation, a chapter in her autobiography â€Å"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings†, Maya Angelou talks vividly about her middle school graduation in the segregated South. Graduation is an important milestone in most people’s life, as they get a degree and move on to their next level, something better and more important, with the hope that they can use their new knowledge to achieve their life goals and ambitions. This is what the all black children of the graduating class of 1940 in the grammar school in Stamps, Arkansas, believed as well, including Maya Angelou. In this passage, the author persuasively uses ethos to expose, as an African American girl, how her graduation ceremony was another episode of the unfinished struggle for freedom and against racial segregation. The ceremony started with a shock, deceit, and very negative thoughts for everyone in the auditorium when Edward Donleavy, the white state representative gave his commencement speech, hurting the feelings and compromising the goals and ambitions of the young graduates. At the end, however, Henry Reed, the valedictorian of the class, unexpectedly concluded his speech by prompting his fellow graduate and the whole auditorium to sing with him the Negro National Anthem â€Å"Lift Every Voice and Sing†, This lifted the children of the graduating class high to the top and provided them the courage, energy and renewedShow MoreRelatedLiterary Criticism : The Free Encyclopedia 7351 Words   |  30 Pagesnovel is sometimes used interchangeably with Bildungsroman, but its use is usually wider and less technical. The birth of the Bildungsroman is normally dated to the publication of Wilhelm Meister s Apprenticeship by Johann Wolfgang Goethe in 1795–96,[8] or, sometimes, to Christoph Martin Wieland s Geschichte des Agathon of 1767.[9] Although the Bildungsroman arose in Germany, it has had extensive influence first in Europe and later throughout the world. Thomas Carlyle translated Goethe’s novel