Maya Angelou’s Phenomenal Woman: A Formalist-Feminist Study

Maya Angelou, an African-American modern woman poet, manifested the belief that a poet’s job is to elevate the moral standards of her culture and society. 

“I would like to be known as an intelligent woman, a courageous woman, a loving woman, who teaches by being.”

Here, one truth can be deduced, Angelou was not only a literary scholar-believer but also viewed poetry (and thereby literature as a whole) as a compelling transformative tool for liberty and magnificence; a tool embedded with love for confronting the major conflicts of race, sex, gender, and sociocultural backgrounds.

As a pioneering woman of classic sensibility and rational persuasion, Angelou wrote Phenomenal Woman in 1995. Her poem, when examined through a single critical lens, in particular, is to be observed as taking a stance against the globally manifested and practiced patriarchal orientation: Feeding women with segregatory and discriminatory beliefs and biases— a proposition that defines womanhood through insufficiency.  

Given that at the very beginning of the poem, the speaker calls upon the notion of “pretty women wonder...”, this might, in effect, prompt the reader to assume that it is an allusion to the white feminists, whose struggle historically framed ‘feminism’ as an ideology created to only include white women. Thus, a shift to the notion of womanism may, in effect, resolve the misunderstanding by emphasizing inclusivity instead.

I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms,
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally (lines: 5- 11)

I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
The palm of my hand, 
The need for my care.
‘Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally (lines: 52- 58).

The two extracts are taken from the opening and closing stanzas of Phenomenal Woman. As can be detected, they reflect sexist, woman-hating notions that significantly erupted as the result of male-dominated suppression during the 1990s. Angelou turns the tables here: The woman’s body is incredibly celebrated, elevated, and intensified. Looked more closely, the conclusion that can be drawn points directly to Angelou’s choice of vocabulary: The deliberate simplicity preserved throughout the lines connotes how mundanely the woman is observed through the lens of male beholders. Yet, because this notion persistently governs male perception — the woman is condemned by the patriarchal dominance to be either a celibate agent; that is, to keep and prove her ongoing virginity (unspoiled). Or, as best put in by Gilbert and Gubar, that a woman’s sole function is to be seductive. In this case, the woman who is misled and manipulated into sexual relations has no one to blame for or “shout at”, because she is rendered the Madwoman in the Attic. 

It’s true that the Phenomenal Woman is crafted using simple language; however, that mustn’t cause the reader to underestimate what treasure it’s withholding:

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me
They try so much
But they can’t touch 
My inner mystery (lines: 30- 34).

Here, Angelou’s poem gets genuinely literary and artful due to the mystical ambiance it creates. Angelou, as can be observed throughout her canon, implements strong feminine motifs and employs empowered female characteristics to eradicate the prior myths that have long clouded the idea of  womanhood. She basically struggles to, through reasonable persuasion, make the women’s communities realize and rediscover their autonomy. By invoking the speaker’s “inner mystery”, she’s delivering a heightened stature upon women, emphasizing the power to preserve  their individuality against the abuse and misconduct within male-dominated communities. 

In the following section, she wrestles with creating ambiguous relations between words that simultaneously lavish praise upon a woman’s being, while connoting how women, in general, are regarded as obsolete by men. Since men have rarely really attempted to delve into making discoveries about womanhood, then it is about time for them to experience a rhythmic glimpse of this unfathomable subject — even though she (the speaker) is leading her speech with deliberate enigma. Her bearing suggests that even in this simple discourse– “The fellows [will] stand or/ Fall down on their knees (lines: 17, 18)”– they do so without an iota of comprehension of what a woman is:

I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally (lines: 37- 43).

Another strategic performance of Angelou — whether to men’s delight or spite, but nevertheless, making them turn inside out — is a selective use of poetic devices which come once together as if introducing a being of an almost otherworldly nature: 

I say, 
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist, 
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally (lines: 21-27). 

Here, Maya Angelou constructs a near-surrealistic portrayal that not only glorifies the essence of womanhood but also, as she may, stands for the rights of all women throughout the age and history. Her hope, thus, lies in the regard to which a woman may ascend and acquire rights equal to those of her male counterparts. Angelou’s poem serves as a protest against interpretations that reduce women to mere enigmas while neglecting feminist rights. This, however, does not make the whole section ironic; rather, it strives to sincerely “become” all the things a woman is. 

REFERENCES:

Angelou, Maya. “Phenomenal Woman”. Poetry Foundation. Phenomenal Woman | The Poetry Foundation.

Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. Pearson, 5th ed. 2011: p.p. 154, 155.

Manning, Margaret. “What Kind of Woman Are You? One Of My Favorite Maya Angelou Quotes”. Sixty+Me. March, 2016. What Kind of Woman Are You? One of My Favorite Maya Angelou Quotes | Sixty and Me.

“Maya Angelou”. Poetry Foundation. Maya Angelou | The Poetry Foundation.