Graduation by Maya Angelou - Essay Example

In the first story, Graduation by Maya Angelou, the author tends to explain an array of emotional turmoil that the protagonist undergoes; she is a young girl belonging to an African American race thus making her skin tone black as compared to the other white students in her classroom. The story is set in the 1940s, the year which she is to graduate and at the final graduation day speech, her heart begins to flutter as she listens to one of her professors speak proudly about the “white students” as he goes on and on about how they will prosper and become the next generation of famous scientists, architects, artists and politicians of the country.

He completely undermined the feelings of those students that belonged to other races and in this manner discriminated against them; the young girl felt disappointment, anger, sadness and then pride within herself during the course of the speech. When the valedictorian, a young classmate by the name of Reed gave his speech, he tried to encourage those that had been left out and the girl felt happy that there were some people who thought differently. She made it a point to be proud of her background instead of being angry at the professor; she understood that people would probably discriminate against her in the long run in life however she motivated herself to do extremely well in life and not hear their taunts.

She thus overcame her challenge by moving on and not thinking about things that people say do not even matter. The second beautiful piece, ‘A Hole in the Wall’ by Andrea Barrett is a wonderful account of a couple moving into Brooklyn to spend their lives with each other. The author talks about the shoddy surroundings where they took up a dwelling however the love and affection with which she had begun to care for the place; with time, she began to overcome her fear of living in a less luxurious place and gave in to her surroundings by absorbing the various cultures that lived together.

She talks about the demise of the twin towers in the year 2009 and how it happened in front of her very own eyes; that evening, she ventured into Manhattan with her husband and of what she saw, she wrote “the way so much of daily life was still being lived; the tremendous social momentum that keeps us moving through the forms of life even after the heart has stopped.” This goes to show that she was inspired by the manner in which every New Yorker that day handled him or herself – rose from the abyss that they had fallen into and continued their daily working lives in order to witness a better tomorrow.

Even the worst of challenges in life must be faced without fear and this was when she faced the fact that no matter where she lived, she at least had a home and love in it; when she went away from her apartment, she felt like a stranger and wanted to go back ‘home’. Home is where the heart is, thus, and this story helps the readers to understand the importance of the ability to accept the situations that life throws towards a person in order to learn from it and become stronger because once an individual is able to do that, he will eventually be able to reap the fruits of success.