Maya Angelou the author of the poem, “Harlem Hopscotch” uses the common childhood game to represent the very adult themes of hunger, unemployment, and desperation. Angelou shows that the game of hopscotch addresses the hardships in life that you have to persevere through in order to complete the game of life. Angelou portrays the theme of poverty of African American children growing up in a city where there is a struggle with race and wealth, she presents this in a 14-line sonnet. This poem is formatted with three rhyming quatrains and an ending rhyming couplet. The rhyme scheme of the poem is AABBCCDDEEFFGG. Throughout the poem Angelou different techniques to express hopscotch as the metaphor of life. She uses slang and incorrect grammar to
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Its hot” (1). This line shows alliteration of the h sound. It also has an urgent tone that is caused by the exclamation point and the element of heat after then hop! Its hot. The urgency of this line may represent the pressures that one might face as things in life do not go as smoothly as they expected. The line “Good things for the ones that 's got” (2) is important in two aspects its intentional ungrammatical nature and its meaning are significant. This line meaning is that some people are born into this world being better off than others like they have better social status, more money, and the community they are born into is better. These people never have to worry about when their next meal is going to be and when and if they are going to get a paycheck that will cover their rent. Angelou also intentionally uses incorrect grammar in the line “the ones that’s got” to show that the speaker is not a person who was born into a high social class, he/she probably was never educated. The emphasis of the situation of others being better off is portrayed more in line four when he/she says “Everybody for hisself” meaning that when people are desperate they can only stand to worry about themselves, as in reality one cannot always count on other people to look after …show more content…
The hopscotch game is made increasingly more difficult when the “food is gone, the rent is due” and “all the people out of work” (7,9). Dealing with these problems is made even more difficult when they come right after the other, in order to overcome these barriers, you have to keep on going through the game even if there are challenges. Angelou writes, “In the air, now both feet down. /Since you black, don’t stick around” (5-6). These lines mean that if you are African American the only choice you have is to move on and keep persevering. This stanza is all about pushing through the struggles of life in orders to move
Its hot” (1). This line shows alliteration of the h sound. It also has an urgent tone that is caused by the exclamation point and the element of heat after then hop! Its hot. The urgency of this line may represent the pressures that one might face as things in life do not go as smoothly as they expected. The line “Good things for the ones that 's got” (2) is important in two aspects its intentional ungrammatical nature and its meaning are significant. This line meaning is that some people are born into this world being better off than others like they have better social status, more money, and the community they are born into is better. These people never have to worry about when their next meal is going to be and when and if they are going to get a paycheck that will cover their rent. Angelou also intentionally uses incorrect grammar in the line “the ones that’s got” to show that the speaker is not a person who was born into a high social class, he/she probably was never educated. The emphasis of the situation of others being better off is portrayed more in line four when he/she says “Everybody for hisself” meaning that when people are desperate they can only stand to worry about themselves, as in reality one cannot always count on other people to look after …show more content…
The hopscotch game is made increasingly more difficult when the “food is gone, the rent is due” and “all the people out of work” (7,9). Dealing with these problems is made even more difficult when they come right after the other, in order to overcome these barriers, you have to keep on going through the game even if there are challenges. Angelou writes, “In the air, now both feet down. /Since you black, don’t stick around” (5-6). These lines mean that if you are African American the only choice you have is to move on and keep persevering. This stanza is all about pushing through the struggles of life in orders to move