Unravelling the Sufferings of Black Women: A Feministic Study of Angelou’s Poetry through the lens of Transitivity mode of Analysis

Abstract

The present study aims to explore the way Angelou in her poetry, seems to
challenge the patriarchal standards of beauty and the expectations that a
woman needs to fulfil being a member of that society. Meanwhile, the
researcher has applied mixed methods along with the implementation of
Systemic functional linguistics as the theoretical framework of this study.
However, the data of this investigation has been comprised of two poems
entitled “Still I Rise" and Phenomenal Woman”. The purposive sampling
technique has been applied by the researcher to get the particular data. In
the data analysis section, first, the researcher did the quantitative analysis of
the data by applying Halliday's (2004) model of transitivity and after that,
she gave the qualitative interpretation of the data with the use of Simon de
Beauvoir’s perspective of feminism given in her work entitled “The Second
Sex” (1949). The findings revealed five types of processes in both poems,
out of them material process was dominant throughout. Further, this
transitivity system successfully explored the struggle of the speaker against
the conventional rules to oppress women in the patriarchal society of
America.