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Analysis of 'Woman Work' by Maya Angelou

‘Woman Work’ is a poem about a black working woman set in the southern states of the U.S.A. In the poem, the woman is very busy, as she lists all her chores in the first stanza. All this working makes her tired and she cries out to the elements to take her away from the frustration. The main theme in ‘Woman Work’ is work. We know this because of the long list of household jobs she’s got to do in the first stanza. Another theme in the poem is loneliness. We can see this by the fact that she only mentions her children and not her partner/husband, if she has one. The message that the poet is trying to get through to the reader is that life can be horrible, and you have to do anything to survive.
The way that Maya Angelou has written this poem is on purpose. The first st...

Posted by: Jack Drewes

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