And The Caged Bird Will Fly

“You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I'll rise.”   ~Maya Angelou, Still I Rise

First week of this class!
             This week, the most notable study for me, was an excerpt from Maya Angelou's memoir I Know When The Caged Bird Sings.  My first experiences with Maya Angelou had been through her poetry.  "Still I Rise", and "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" really resonated with me in its themes of the struggle for black rights, and it gained me even more respect for the movement.

              Anyways, the story itself was called "Champion of the World", and it described the boxing match between Joe Louis and Primo Carnera in the context of the entire black race.  In the story, a number of overarching ideas really stood out to me.  The parallel journey between the match itself and black pride was a fresh perspective on a subject too often told insipidly in history books.   The second major motif, religion, is one of the topics which we talked about in our seminar on the story: the idea that even God's judgement on the African American people depended on the results of a single boxing match.  Besides the obvious references to God, I found this quote interesting:

"...that God Himself hated us and ordained us to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, forever and ever"(Angelou 90)

             The expressions with the hewers and drawers belongs to Joshua 9:23, and the biblical story involves a group of people being cursed, to become menial laborers for the rest of time.  Although a bit of research on the semantics of the phrase revealed to me that the phrase is sometimes used with a positive connotation, to denote hardworking people, they are laborers nonetheless.

               Yet another literary twist that Angelou weaves skillfully into the story is the irony that exists even at the end of the story.  In the final paragraph,Joe Louis emerges victorious, and the African Americans watching in the store consider themselves "the strongest people in the world"(Angelou 90). However, the author then remarks that "it wouldn't do for a Black man and his family to be caught....on a [victorious night]"(Angelou 90).  By maintaining that despite the previous hours of pride and moral epiphany, being on the road is still dangerous, Angelou hints at something deeper with the struggle between blacks and whites--that the hundreds of years of mutual hatred requires time and effort--is too much to overcome in a single event, even for a legend like Joe Louis.

               But to Louis I say this: what must it feel like to have the hopes of an entire race resting on your shoulders?  Would be crushing, or inspiring?  Would it be beautiful or ugly, sentimental or terrifying? Perhaps even the greatest literary tricks refuse to reveal such private thoughts. Either way, it seems like Joe Louis rose up to the occasion.

For the first time of many, thanks for reading!
~Chris