Maya Angelou Phenomenal Woman Analysis

Maya Angelou’s poem Phenomenal Woman reflects how women and men in society view others who do not physically appeal to the naked eye and how Maya angelou’s life contributed to the confidence she has now as a woman and by the end of the poem it shows all the confidence Angelou portrays, and how that confidence is reflected in her words.

To better understand how Angelou came to see herself as a phenomenal woman, it may help to know a bit about her childhood and how it sculpted her. When Maya was three years old her parents divorced, so her and her brother were sent to live with their grandmother. At the age of eight her and her brother moved back with their mother and her male friend, who ended up raping Maya when she was eight. She finally told her brother what the man had done but for five years Angelou became depressed and mute. Her family did not know what to do about her distant state or how to help her. So they sent her to Stamps, where she meet a woman by the name of Mrs. Flowers who “rescued” angelou not only from her inner turmoil. With all of Maya’s problematic personal and home issues she learned to open her eyes and see the …show more content…
The first stanza of Angelou’s phenomenal woman talks about how women who are pretty on the outside wonder why Angelou is so confident, because she is not as pretty as them, or does not have as nice of a body like they do. She tells these women that it’s true she is not thin like a model but the beauty that she portrays is deep within and these women just can 't believe that inner beauty can make her so confident when her outer beauty is as appealing. Angelou continues the stanza by telling where her secret to her beauty comes from by listing her body parts; her arms her hips, her step, and her lips. The way she talks about her body is as if she’s bringing each body part to life and it 's growing more confident throughout the