Graduation of Innocence

Graduation of Innocence Graduation, or moving up to the next level of life, always comes with a wonderful and grand commencement ceremony, but many times the graduation is as quiet and seemingly just as natural as any other normal day. In the autobiographical essay, "The Graduation," Maya Angelou uses three incredibly effective rhetorical strategies to get her point across- detailed comparisons and contrasts, a very expressive voice, and a wonderful flow to her sentences that keeps the story interesting- in order to look over the personal growth of herself and others caught up in some of the worst times of racial discrimination.
The story told in “The graduation” can be summarized in a pretty basic way. We see how the speaker in the story, a young black girl, awaits with great anticipation and expectation for her graduation day. At the start of the story the narrator speaks with great pride and confidence. She thinks very well of herself when she says, "...I was going to be lovely. A walking model of all the various styles of fine hand sewing and it didn't worry me that I was only twelve years old and merely graduating from the eighth grade..." (Angelou 76). She further exemplifies her good work when she says "...my work alone had awarded me to a top place and I was going to be one of the first called in the graduating ceremonies. No absences, nor tardiness, and my academic work was among the best of the year..." (Angelou 77). When the day of graduation arrives though, her great dreams and expectations are crushed by the speech that Mr. Donleavy, who is a white man, gave to her graduating class. Immediately after his speech, the narrator goes on to say, "Graduation, hush-hush magic time of frills and gifts and congratulations and diploma, was finished for me before my name was called. The accomplishments was nothing. Donleavy had exposed us ..." (Angelou 83). In this quote we can feel the frustration and disappointment that she felt. The story goes on some