The Literary Merits of Maya Angelou’s Choice of Narrative Style in her Autobiographies

Abstract

Abstract

Maya Angelou’s autobiographies, which present a real life experience of a young black girl growing up in a little township in Arkansas earns her a place in what one can call a literary hall of fame. This is because her in-depth presentation of incidents with detail and her careful choice of narrative techniques show her mastery and craftsmanship as a writer. This study presents an analysis of the literary merits of Angelou’s choice of narrative style in her autobiographies to explore the predominant themes in the texts. The study discusses the merits of the following literary techniques to highlight the dominant subjects in her narratives:humour, figurative language, the serial autobiography technique, authorial commentary, voice, time and time distortion, the story-within-a-story technique, name changes, among others like the blend of the first person narrative technique and dialogue. The study concludes that Angelou displays deep mastery over her craft as a writer and confirms that she was successful in exploring these techniques to drum home her message to her reading audience. Key Words:authorial commentary, literary style, comic elements, voice, first person narrative