“Men” by Maya Angelou
The poem “Men” is about Maya Angelou’s experience with men and the way she understands them. Men are the stronger sex and they can get what they want from women. Inexperienced, young, women fall prey to men who are the dominant gender. A life of a woman is not fair because she is deprived of making a choice in life and she can only decide to accept what men are offering or not.
The poem “Men” deals with the desire the narrator feels towards men as she observes them through the window: “They knew I was there. / FifteenYears old and starving for them” (7-8). Afterwards, she understands that the expectations of men are different than her own but she keeps looking for what she wants to get from a man. After having some experience with men she says: “The hurt begins. Wrench out a / Smile that slides around the fear” (21-22). She wants to remain self-confident and strong, but it is hard when men are in charge. Men control her feelings and she has to resist it even though she is hurt. The narrator describes how a woman feels when she is hurt by these powerful men, but she says that she has found a way to protect herself: “But this time, I will simply / Stand and watch. / Maybe” (37-39). She knows how to deal with men this time and she keeps on looking at them as they pass by. Men control everything in this poem and a woman who is attracted to them needs to be careful about her interaction with them.
The main ideas in the poem are related to the loss of innocence and with the expectations of men and women which differ. While women have worth, men also have worth and know how to use women to their advantage at the same time. She says:
When the Air disappears, Your mind pops, exploding fiercely, briefly, Like the head of a kitchen match. Shattered. It is your juice That runs down their legs. Staining their shoes (22-27).
Angelou is writing from experience as well because: “During a visit with her mother, Angelou was raped by her mother's boyfriend. Then, as vengeance for the sexual assault, Angelou's uncles killed the boyfriend” (biography.com). This happened then she was 7 and it left a trace on her character but also shaped her to become a strong, independent woman capable of surviving. Maya has been the inspiration to millions of women all over the world for a long time because the words she writes are powerful. She was a civil rights activist and an author and she touched the hearts of people from everywhere reaching them with her empathy. The poem “Men” describes what men are like as Maya creates mental images of women losing their virginity to men who value their shoes more than they value the honor of these women. However, the narrator is still attracted to men and she struggles in life because of that. Moreover, she chooses to be alert and to observe these men in order to classify them. Men show off their shoulders as young women take pride in their firm breasts and this means that these men lack masculinity since they take pride in something so superficial.
This work differs than “The Phenomenal Woman” because it demonstrates that women have their weaknesses. In “The Phenomenal Woman”, the woman is described as a real phenomenon and as a provider. Angelou says that she is important to men because of the fact that they need her:
’Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me. (56-60).
There is a difference between these two poems because the poem “Men” is about the woman who has to learn how to live in men’s world while, the woman from “The Phenomenal Woman” has the world revolving around her. The difference between “Men” and the poem “Still I Rise” lies in the fact that “Still I Rise” is the poem in which spite is present. The woman is the survivor and she thinks of herself as if she were the queen of the world: “Does my sexiness upset you? / Does it come as a surprise / That I dance like I’ve got diamonds / At the meeting of my thighs?“ (25-28). There is also a similarity between the poem “Still I Rise” and “Men” because both of these poems are related to the fact that the woman is a treasure-holder who is capable of surviving anything. This woman is a true victor and she takes pride in her strong personality. This topic is present in “Phenomenal Woman” as well because the real woman is phenomenal and she makes impact on the whole world who is surprised at her behavior. Nobody expects from a woman to be strong and to survive everything, but Maya Angelou promotes this kind of behavior and encourages women to be themselves at all costs.
The concept of the “Angel in the House” is present in the poem “Men” because Maya suggests that men expect obedience from women no matter how they treat them. At first they treat women with delicacy, but afterwards, women mean nothing to them and they become just an asset in the household. These men think of themselves as the providers and they expect from women to do as they say. There is also the suppression of women’s voices and Maya implies that when she describes the narrator as the woman who is looking at men through the window as they pass by her house on their way to work. The men are very important and they think highly of themselves which is why they are dressed well and walk with heads up. Women are supposed to be pure and self-sacrificing, but men are those who corrupt the purity and innocence of women. They do not treat them with respect because they believe to be more important than women. Men use women for their pleasure and then they throw them away. Maya Angelou suggests that women can show less interest in men and give them less importance, if they decide to, which is why her protagonist’s expectations from men change by the end of the poem. She feels desire and lust for men and she has a great choice because there are all sorts of men, both young and older. The woman retreats to herself in the end because she needs to recuperate her strength so that she could deal with everyday life again.
The poem “Men” is about a woman’s perception of men which she gained from her experience since she was only fifteen. Her struggle with the opposite sex began at an early age and she has had many disappointments in life because of men. She has learned to deal with the difficulties in life and she keeps looking at men, but this time, it is at her own terms.
Works Cited
Angelou, Maya. "Phenomenal Woman." Poetry Foundation . N.p., n.d. Web. 31 July 2016. <https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/48985>.
Angelou, Maya. "Still I Rise ." poets.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 July 2016. <https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/still-i-rise>.
Angelou, Maya. "Men." PoemHunter.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 July 2016. <http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/men/>.
"Maya Angelou Biography." biography.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 July 2016. <http://www.biography.com/people/maya-angelou-9185388>.
