In the speech, Maya Angelou uses metaphors to characterize Coretta Scott King. She describes Coretta as a woman who was 'born a cornflower and destined to become a steel magnolia.' Cornflowers are beautiful summer plants; they are hardy and flower abundantly throughout the entire summer season, often bathing whole fields in blue. The magnolia itself is a most impressive and stately flower; it is associated with the vibrant resilience of the South. The term, 'steel magnolia,' popularly symbolizes the inner strength and irrepressible courage inherent in southern womanhood. Maya Angelou uses the metaphor of the cornflower and steel magnolia to characterize the progressive vibrancy, resilience, and courage exhibited by Coretta Scott King throughout her lifetime.
In the speech, Maya Angelou also uses the metaphor of sleeping children to characterize the calm innocence of Coretta Scott King's hands.
In the midst of national tumult, in the medium of international violent uproar, Coretta Scott King’s face remained a study in serenity. In times of interior violent storms she sat, her hands resting in her lap calmly, like good children sleeping.
To reiterate the image of Coretta Scott King's purity of conduct (hands that are as innocent as 'good children sleeping' will never support violence), Maya Angelou uses the literary device of anaphora.
She believed religiously in non-violent protest.
She believed it could heal a nation mired in a history of slavery and all its excesses.
She believed non-violent protest religiously could lift up a nation rife with racial prejudices and racial bias.
Maya Angelou continues to use anaphora (the repetition of the first word/words in succeeding sentences) to emphasize Coretta Scott King's personal belief in the equality of all people.
She loved her church fervently. She loved and adored her husband and her children. She cherished her race. She cherished women. She cared for the conditions of human beings, of native Americans and Latin — Latinos and Asian Americans. She cared for gay and straight people. She was concerned for the struggles in Ireland, and she prayed nightly for Palestine and equally for Israel.
I mean to say I want to see a better world.
I mean to say I want to see some peace somewhere.
I mean to say I want to see some honesty, some fair play.
Maya Angelou also uses parallelism to lend a rhythm and flow to her rhetoric that is indispensable in emphasizing her plea for consensus.
And those of us who gather here, principalities, presidents, senators, those of us who run great companies, who know something about being parents, who know something about being preachers and teachers — those of us, we owe something from this minute on; so that this gathering is not just another footnote on the pages of history. We owe something.
Maya Angelou's use of end rhyme and internal rhyme at the end of her speech lends a unique, musical rhythm to her final words. End rhymes occur when the last syllables/words in two or more end lines rhyme with one another; internal rhyme occurs on the same line.
[Sings: “I open my mouth to the Lord and I won’t turn back, no. I will go, I shall go. I’ll see what the end is gonna be.”]
Hope this helps!
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