Describe how techniques have been used in the text. Explain how these techniques have been used to create a particular effect?
In the poem A Brave And Startling Truth by Maya Angelou the techniques metaphor, juxtaposition, intertextual references, repetition, and historical references are used to create the effect of contrast between us, the human race as a whole, now and after we learn the brave and startling truth. This poem is about learning who we are, it’s about waving white flags and stopping all violence, it’s about universal understanding and also the joys peace will bring to our world.
Metaphors in the poem A Brave And Startling Truth highlight the effect of contrast by making us look deeper into the poem, they draw our eyes towards the good and the bad. Metaphors show us who we are now and who we will be after we learn the “brave and startling truth”. Many metaphors in the poem show contrast with two parts, one part showing us who we are now and the other showing us who we will be in the future, “When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean”. Most metaphors in the poem are in the future tense but there are many references to the present, the effect of this is contrast. The future tense shows that we will find the truth and the references to the present give us an incentive or a push to achieve this future. This is linked to Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher, who believed that society mirrors literacy. He thought that nothing bad should ever happen in literacy or something bad would happen in society. Maya Angelou is writing about the worst parts of human society, but she is using the effect of metaphors to give us a reason to change, a reason to find the truth, “When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders”. Metaphors in A Brave And Startling are closely linked to society, there are bad parts to society but there are also many good parts as well. We have made huge discoveries in science, math, and literature, the human race has done many things that are monumentous. The interesting thing about this is that our race is destroying the earth in a way no other species could. Homo Erectus, a long-extinct species of humans, survived for 2 million years, we have only been around for 200,000. This shows how far from perfect our race is when other, less intelligent species have lasted much longer than we likely will. Metaphors in A brave And Startling Truth show how our intelligence is our downfall and that other animals seem to know the “brave and startling truth” while we stay in the dark. The futuristic part of the metaphors show that we will make amends, we will fix our current situations with global warming, poverty, and overcrowding when we learn the truth.
Juxtaposition creates the effect of contrast in A Brave And Startling Truth by putting good and bad things next to each other. In the poem there are two parts to some stanzas, one part being good and the other being bad, there are also single lines like this. ”whose hands can strike with such abandon … yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness”. This shows how much society will change when we find the truth, it will change so much that there will be no more fighting, once we learn the truth we will all understand each other as there will only be one truth. If there is only one truth no one will be able to fight over it because all people will believe and understand it. Maya Angelou is putting the worst and the best next to each other so we can see the bad for what it really is and not just the normalized version of it “in whose mouths abide cankerous words … Yet out of those same mouths come songs of such exquisite sweetness”. We are used to people throwing mean and unjustified words at each other so much that it has become normalized, no one sees it for what it is. To tear away this layer of social ignorance Angelou puts the bad but normalized parts of society next to an example of how good our language and voice can be. We don’t see how bad parts of our society have become until it’s put into context, “whose hands can strike with such abandon … Yet those same hands can touch with such healing”. There are many societies that have good and bad parts. In countries such as America, there is a massive gap between the rich and the poor. In places like China where there are dictatorships, one person has all the power and the rest have none. Communism aimed to bridge the gap between rich and poor by making it so no one could own anything and everyone was equal, however, in communist countries like Russia, there is still a massive gap between the rich and the poor. It seems like most constructs of society, despite their differences, have had the same outcomes. Communism, dictatorships, and capitalism have all failed to create a totally equal society.
Juxtaposition creates the effect of contrast in A Brave And Startling Truth through intertextual references from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. There are many texts that show examples of the contrast between good and bad. Good and bad is not black and white, some people have different standards for good and bad than others. In A Brave And Startling Truth Maya Angelou depicts bad as the present and the past, and good as “the brave and startling truth”. In the quote “Whose hands can strike with such abandon … Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness” there are subtle intertextual references to William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet where a priest talks about how “Poison hath residence and medicine power” inside of a flower. This relates to Angelou’s quote stated above because they are both saying that there is good and bad in all of us, Angelou’s truth will extract the poison from the flower so only good “medicine power” remains. The major difference between the two quotes is that Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet in 1595, 400 years before Angelou’s poem A Brave And Startling Truth, which was written in 1995. This time gap is significant because it enforces the idea of contrast through juxtaposition. The fact that Romeo and Juliet can compare to A Brave and Startling Truth is saying that our society has remained unchanged for hundreds of years. Putting our long history of an unchanged society with low moral standards comparative to when we learn the truth next to the future when we learn the truth is emphasizing that our society has many bad problems now, the effect of this is contrast. This is very relatable to the black lives matter movement. There has been systematic racism in America since its inception, hundreds of years have passed since the beginning of America’s racism and it’s still there. The black lives matter movement is starting to change this by putting light on the racism in America.
Intertextual references to Aeschylus’ Oresteia create the effect of contrast in A Brave And Startling Truth. Oresteia is a play about Agamemnon who is commanding an army that is sailing to Troy to fight a war. On the way, he upsets the gods and becomes stranded on an island with no wind, without wind he can’t sail his ships to Troy. If he stays on the island all his men will die from thirst and starvation, however, the gods say they will allow him to continue to Troy if he sacrifices his firstborn daughter. Agamemnon and all the other commanders swore an oath saying that they would win the war they were heading to, if he does not sacrifice his daughter he will break his oath. Agamemnon has to make the choice between being a good commander or being a good father. This is related to A Brave And Startling Truth because the whole poem is about good and bad, “to the day of peacemaking when we release our fingers from fists of hostility”. Oresteia is similar, Agamemnon had the choice to be a good father or a bad father, a good commander or a bad commander. In Oresteia, Agamemnon chose to be a good commander, he sacrificed his daughter. Angelou’s poem says that if we learn “the brave and startling truth” there will be no more sacrifice. The rest of the Oresteia is about revenge. Agamemnon’s wife Clytemnestra murdered Agamemnon for the sacrifice of their daughter. Agamemnon and Clytemnestra’s other children kill Clytemnestra to avenge their father. This shows how bad religious sacrifice can be and therefore enforces the fact that our society in the present and past is and was truly evil according to Angelou’s poem. A Brave And Startling Truth also says we can and will do better than this, “when religious ritual is not perfumed by the incense of burning flesh”. This relates to society because everyone has to make tough decisions at some point in their life and they will have to deal with the consequences of these decisions whether they are good or bad. Agamemnon had an impossible choice to make, if he did not sacrifice his daughter it is likely that they all would have died, however, the choice to sacrifice his daughter also caused his death, the death of his wife, and the anger of his children, but not the death of all his men. This is symbolic of the decisions we have to make in life. These hard decisions are also the decisions that will be prevented if we learn “the brave and startling truth”.
Repetition creates the effect of contrast in A Brave And Startling Truth through affirmation. Maya Angelou makes it very clear throughout the poem that we will learn the truth, she does this by repeating “when we come to it” at the start of almost every paragraph. This is affirming that we will learn the truth no matter what. There is another important piece of repetition in the poem as well: “we this people” followed by a statement showing how small and alone we are, is repeated 4 times throughout the poem. This is showing how small and tiny we are and that no one is coming to help us. Combining these two forms of repetition creates the effect of contrast, the first one shows that we will find the truth and the second one is saying that we are a very tiny part of the universe. The universe is depicted as a very cold dark space and the truth is warm and bright. The warm, bright truth compared to the cold, dark universe creates contrast. For example, the quote “we, this people on this mote of matter” is showing that the earth is a very small planet that is of no consequence to the universe. This combined with “when we come to it” at the beginning of the stanza shows that until we come to the truth we will be alone and lost in the cold and dark universe. This relates to society through space exploration, we are becoming technologically advanced enough to begin to branch out into the cosmos and are starting to explore the rest of our solar system and our galaxy. So far no other lifeforms have been found, this is an affirmation of the effect of repetition used in Maya Angelou’s poem. There is a very low chance that someone is going to come and help us, we have to do it on our own.
Historical references create the effect of contrast in A Brave And Startling Truth through the past. Maya Angelou put historical references into the poem so we can see who we were, who we are, and who we could be as a whole people. This lays out our history in a way that makes the good seem really good and the bad seem really bad. We see how bad our past has been and how good our future will be when we learn the truth. Historical references help us see how bad some societies have degraded to “When battlefields and coliseum no longer rake our … sons and daughters Up with the bruised and bloody grass” and shows how good society will become “That the haughty neck is happy to bow and the proud back is glad to bend”. Historical references also show the good things from our past and how they will be amplified by the “brave and startling truth”. We are not all bad, we have accomplished so many amazing achievements that we have become swamped down by them. Angelou is saying, through historical references, that we need to see through everything that we have achieved so that we can understand that not one person made these great advances but many. If we all unite we can make much more progress then on our own, “out of those … mouths Come songs of such exquisite sweetness”, music is one of our great achievements that can never be done alone. Religion is used in the poem to create the effect of contrast as well. Religion goes back to the very start of society and is one of the most important and defining parts of humanity, however, many religions have different standards for good and evil, other religions or ways of doing things being evil and their religion being good. This can be seen in Shakespeare’s philosophy of good being god and evil being the devil. Anyone who didn’t align with Shakespeare’s religion could be classified as the devil so Shakespeare’s criteria for bad will be different from people of other religions. This clash has caused many wars and lots of death over the years and is one of Maya Angelou’s reasons for writing the poem. In A Brave And Startling Truth Angelou says indirectly that the solution to this problem is having just one truth, not lots of them. This would mean that there would only be one standard for good and bad that everyone agrees on, “when the rapacious storming of the churches … have ceased”. However, Angelou’s truth could also be classified as a religion, while Maya Angelou never specifically states what the truth is she makes it clear that everyone would follow this truth. Many religions have tried this and all have been unsuccessful. This is linked to society because religious wars are happening and have been happening for a long time. There were the crusades, where Christians fought against Muslims because they had different beliefs. There were many wars between Paganism and Christianity in the 2nd century. When the Europeans colonized New Zealand many Maori converted to Christianity as well.
The techniques metaphor, juxtaposition, intertextual references, repetition, and historical references in A Brave And Startling Truth by Maya Angelou have been used to create the effect of contrast between our society now and when we learn the brave and startling truth. Metaphors show us who we are now and who we will be in the future. Juxtaposition shows the contrast in the poem by putting good and bad next to each other, juxtaposition also shows contrast through comparison to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Intertextual references show contrast through Aeschylus’ Oresteia. Repetition shows contrast through affirmation. Historical references show contrast by comparing the past to the future. From Angelou’s poem, we learn that we are “neither devils nor divines”, our society is one of mostly evil, but if we learn the “brave and startling truth” we can learn from our mistakes, we can recover and we will “have the power to fashion for this earth a climate where every man and every woman can live freely”.
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