It is no doubt that Maya Angelou is a force to reckon with when it comes to matters poetry. She is a poetic giant who infuses many themes and symbolic meanings in her works. Her readers well understand her genre, and the language that she uses in her works is easy to decipher. In her poem ‘Africa,’ she talks about the oppression of Africa and its people by European forces by turning them into slaves. She uses imagery in order to personify Africa to elicit the tone and imagery of this particular poem. Representing Africa as a beautiful woman gives the continent a human nature and the metaphors that are used in this poem bring out the real and vivid image of a beautiful woman. Angelou describes Africa’s deserts as the beautiful woman’s hair, the hills as her breasts and the two Niles as her tears. The plundering of Africa’s rich resources by European imperialists representing the disregard of the beauty of a woman and that is what the poet intends to bring out in this piece. Angelou’s central theme in this poem is to use personification, imagery and metaphors in bringing to life her main subject, Africa, in trying to explain the challenges of enslavement, emancipation and oppression that the continent went through.
Personification is a dominant theme in Angelou’s poem. The poet of this particular piece is also the narrator of the poem. Though she repeatedly sounds omniscient, she employs this style of writing in order to give the reader an opportunity to think about the reading as a personal narration. When describing how Africa has been stripped off its grandeur and majestic glory, she also refers it to a woman who has been deprived of her beauty and dignity. The imagery works well in this poem because most of the readers can relate to the theme of personification that is employed by Angelou in this piece. In her personification of ‘Africa’, the continent obtains actual emotional and responsive appeal that also captures her audience’s sentiments and feelings; hence the reader’s empathy is provoked and aroused. Referring Africa to ‘sugar cane sweet’ also represents the relevance of the incredible opulence and magnificence that the people of Africa represent. The narration apprehends the vivid and vibrant images for the vast continent of Africa. Thus, all this embodiment and onomatopoeia proposes that the continent was distraught and compounded when people were taken from their great homeland and into slavery. The poet uses the words ‘she’ and ‘her’ repeatedly in the poem depicting the human nature that she had related the continent to a beautiful woman to empathize and commiserate. When Angelou states ‘she is striding,' it represents the confident and majestic stride that the continent makes after rising from the shackles and oppression that she underwent after imperialists slayed her. Personification also manifests itself when the author proclaims that the European imperialist took away her young daughters and strong sons and sold them into slavery. The comparison of Africa to a mother induces responsiveness and thoughtfulness not to a beautiful, peaceful and quiescent woman but to one who has been raped, oppressed and destructed and stripped of her dignity as well as of her children.
Imagery is also an important theme in this poem. The imagery depicted about Africa by comparing her hills to a woman’s breasts, her deserts to her hair and her two Niles to her tears shows the reader the beauty and elegance of the great continent. The respectful and thoughtful attitude and tone with which she speaks of Africa is carried through her stylish and graceful style, and the reader cannot help but to adore and admire the continent’s beauty. In most of her pieces, Angelou presents the woman as a gracefully beautiful being that deserved to be respected, treated well and with a lot of care, and also as a glowing symbol in the society. Her comparison of the continent to a beautiful woman illustrates and indicates that the enslavement and repression and prejudice of Africans and African Americans, who form the primary subjects of her works, should be eliminated. However, through this emancipation and prejudice, she also depicts the continent as a rising and shining star, after all, these obstacles. She exclaims ‘she is rising’ and now she is striding. The image of rising and striding gives a sense of freedom and liberty which Africa finally attained. It shows the unshackled movement that emerged in Africa, the independence and autonomy that the continent achieved, after all, the oppression it went through. Remembrance is also brought into light in this poem when the author says that the continents pain should be remembered and that her losses also should be remembered. The poem as we can see is set to tell the reader of the suffering and emancipation of Africa by white imperialists. Therefore, all people of the African creed should relate to these suffering and torment although they were not present at that moment. The people who liberated the vast continent should be honored and remembered. The screams of the continent that were loud and vain, her riches, and her history slain should also not be forgotten by present and future generations.
Along the personification of the continent to evoke vivid imagery and to give human emotions and feelings to the African continent, the entire poem is a metaphor of the continent as a beautiful woman. The rhythm also augments and enriches both the metaphors and tone of the entire poem. The rhythmical outlines underwrite the changing tone from pleasurable to hostile and then to pensive and introspective. The poem itself is historically rooted in mentions of slavery and a past of pain for the vast continent of Africa that evokes emotions and strong feelings and sentiments about the suffering of African and African American people. Angelou being an African American who has undergone her share of prejudice, racism, oppression and poverty is in a better position to write a poem like this one in order to bring out the grim and stark reality of African slavery and emancipation.
The poem is an outstanding piece of poetry and is written with a complete African perspective and hence is easy to relate with for people of the African origin and all the readers of this poem at large. The theme of identity is also encompassed in this poem. All people who have been oppressed and who have undergone some suppression tend clearly to recognize their identity that is common to the continent. Therefore, Angelou’s piece is a strong representation of this identity. She writes her poem in a simple language that is to comprehend by her readers; the writing style that she incorporates in her writing is synonymous with the simplified language that her audience deciphers easily. Her usage of figurative language and techniques like personification, imagery and metaphors provokes the readers to think and reflect on the wider aspect of the very subject that she is evaluating and writing about. Angelou tackles the mainstream historical challenges that Africans and Africans have gone through with time and her literary works like this poem are often dedicated to recognizing the freedom and independence they have attained.
