Analysis of Nikki Giovanni's Poem, Adulthood
Umer Rehman
Professor : Boisson
English:200
Adulthood
Nikki Giovanni wrote many peoms , basically between the time of 1960s and 1970s. At the time of depression. Adulthood is one of the peoms written in the same time as well. Adulthood is a short story about a girl and which shows her childhood and gradually coming into adulthood.
In this peom the Narrator tells us at many places about the economic status of the little girl in different ways. In the beginning "when i was a little girl in indianapolis", indianapolis is a subarban area, not a good economy there. It has small towns there and so just by this we can figure out that girl is not from a rich family or place. in the next line it says "sitting on the doctors porches with post dawn pre debs".Sitting on the doctors porches refers to someone sitting on the steps and doing nothing. It shows as someone who has no job or has nothing important to do, so they just sit and look around. It describes how the place where girl lives has people, who have not much t do and so they sit on door steps and kill time. when we read the next two lines of the peom, where is says "i wondered if life would give me a chance to mean". it relates with the fact that she is sitting there doing nothing and thinking she is worthless, and hoping life gives her a chance to make herself mean something important rather than sitting here. Narrator also mentions the slang language being used again and again in the poem like "usta" and the informal way she uses like "and other bullshit stuff".This potrays her surronding , how and where she is brought up, as the economic status is not good and we see where she llives is not with many educated people so the slang language is used alot.They talk about stuff which is not important while sitting and conversing,shows kind of place and people there are.
Professor : Boisson
English:200
Adulthood
Nikki Giovanni wrote many peoms , basically between the time of 1960s and 1970s. At the time of depression. Adulthood is one of the peoms written in the same time as well. Adulthood is a short story about a girl and which shows her childhood and gradually coming into adulthood.
In this peom the Narrator tells us at many places about the economic status of the little girl in different ways. In the beginning "when i was a little girl in indianapolis", indianapolis is a subarban area, not a good economy there. It has small towns there and so just by this we can figure out that girl is not from a rich family or place. in the next line it says "sitting on the doctors porches with post dawn pre debs".Sitting on the doctors porches refers to someone sitting on the steps and doing nothing. It shows as someone who has no job or has nothing important to do, so they just sit and look around. It describes how the place where girl lives has people, who have not much t do and so they sit on door steps and kill time. when we read the next two lines of the peom, where is says "i wondered if life would give me a chance to mean". it relates with the fact that she is sitting there doing nothing and thinking she is worthless, and hoping life gives her a chance to make herself mean something important rather than sitting here. Narrator also mentions the slang language being used again and again in the poem like "usta" and the informal way she uses like "and other bullshit stuff".This potrays her surronding , how and where she is brought up, as the economic status is not good and we see where she llives is not with many educated people so the slang language is used alot.They talk about stuff which is not important while sitting and conversing,shows kind of place and people there are.