A Rose Or Marguerite By Any Other Name :: essays papers

A travel Or moon daisy By Any Other Name So goes the quote by William Shakespe are, and humannessy people believe this is true. However, to m each of African-American descent, both past and present, to be called out of your name, is one of the superlative insults imaginable. Mary, a chapter from volume one, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, of Dr. Maya Angelous five-volume autobiography, details the horror and rage she felt, and the retribution she administered, at such an act.The course was 1938, and Dr. Angelou, then going by her birth name, Marguerite Johnson, was 10 years old and working as a maid & cooks helper for a white woman named Mrs. Viola Cullinan, the daughter of moneyed Virginian parents. According to Miss Glory, the cook whose family had been slaves for the Cullinans, she had married beneath her to a man whose money didnt mount to much. Marguerite pitied Mrs. Cullinan because she was old, fat, and ugly and couldnt have children, though it was well known that her husband had two beautiful daughters by a colored lady. She tried to feel Mrs. Cullinans bleakness and pain, and tried very hard to make up for her barrenness by coming to work early and staying late. One evening Marguerite was asked to take to heart Mrs. Cullinan and her women friends their drinks on the closed-in porch. When asked her name, Mrs. Cullinan answers for her, Her names Margaret. A close pronunciation, but incorrect, nevertheless. Americans are relegateicularly inept, I think, at pronouncing anything that has a foreign flair to it, or a foreign sound to it, and its much easier for people to say Margaret, than Marguerite, or Andrea instead of Andrica. It is well known that the sweetest sound in any language is the sound of ones own name, so we dont take it mildly if soulfulness makes fun of our names or belittles us because of our name, or mispronounces our name. We proclaim ourselves with a name and were very defensive about them, it is a major part of our identity. Well, that may be, but the names too long. Id never bother myself. Id call her Mary if I was you, said the speckle-face friend who had asked the question. The very next day, Mrs. Cullinan called Marguerite by the molest name, and her dignity and pride, forged amid poverty and racism, became at stake.