16 pages 32 minutes read

Maya Angelou

A Brave And Startling Truth

Nonfiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1995

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Themes

Peace and Warfare

Much of the poem’s impact comes from juxtaposing the effects of war with the beauty of international harmony. The first instance of this contrast is in the second stanza, when the speaker aspires “To the day of peacemaking / When we release our fingers / From fists of hostility” (Lines 8-10). Here, letting go of violence is a “release” of tension, a period of rest after an era of hardship—the intention is to make unclosing our “fists” a welcome and hoped for outcome. The following stanza layers imagery that further enhances this idea: “faces sooted with scorn” (Line 14) bring to mind the blackened ash of battlefields, and the innocent young people who “with the bruised and bloody grass […] lie in identical plots in foreign soil” (Lines 17-18). This imagery reminds the reader that in death, there are no nationalist or class divides. The poem here uses a transferred epithet, a poetic device in which an adjective is transferred from the noun it logically modified to another for emphasis and unease. Here, while the grass is “bloody” because it has been stained with war wounds, it is only “bruised” because the bodies littering it are bruised. Using the adjective in this way demonstrates the far-reaching effects of human warfare, which has a real and measurable impact on the very earth that sustains us.

Related Titles

By Maya Angelou

Plot Summary

logo

All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes

Maya Angelou

All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes

Maya Angelou

Plot Summary

logo

A Song Flung Up to Heaven

Maya Angelou

A Song Flung Up to Heaven

Maya Angelou

Plot Summary

logo

Gather Together in My Name

Maya Angelou

Gather Together in My Name

Maya Angelou

Study Guide

logo

Letter to My Daughter

Maya Angelou

Letter to My Daughter

Maya Angelou

Study Guide

logo

Mom & Me & Mom

Maya Angelou

Mom & Me & Mom

Maya Angelou

Study Guide

logo

Mother, A Cradle to Hold Me

Maya Angelou

Mother, A Cradle to Hold Me

Maya Angelou

Study Guide

logo

On the Pulse of Morning

Maya Angelou

On the Pulse of Morning

Maya Angelou

Plot Summary

logo

Phenomenal Woman

Maya Angelou

Phenomenal Woman

Maya Angelou

Study Guide

logo

The Heart of a Woman

Maya Angelou

The Heart of a Woman

Maya Angelou

Study Guide

logo

The Lesson

Maya Angelou

The Lesson

Maya Angelou