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A Song Flung Up to Heaven
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Plot Summary of A Song Flung Up to Heaven
"The book is one of the six autobiographical books written by Maya Angelou. In this book, Maya Angelou returns to the United States after living in Ghana for a year or two to work with Malcolm X. But the first thing she tells Malcolm that she must do once she arrives is to go to California to reunite with her mother and brother. As soon as she arrives at her old home, she is told that Malcolm X has been assassinated.

Maya becomes very upset since she had considered Malcolm a very close friend. But that sadness turned into confusion when she learned that Malcolm X had been killed by his own kind, African Americans. Now, she really doesn't have a reason to be in the United States but knowing that she cannot go back to Ghana, she tries to pull her life together by singing in nightclubs and even trying door-to-door surveys in the city of Watts.

Eventually, Dr. Martin Luther King Junior asks Maya to go around to black churches all over the United States and try to gain support for Dr. King's Poor People's March. She is very excited to get started but a telephone call depresses her. It was a call saying that Dr. King was assassinated. But with the help of her friends, she is barely pulled out of her depression and all of these events lead her to write the autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings."

alisa, Resident Scholar



Review Analysis of A Song Flung Up to Heaven
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Political/social rights fight Yes
Plotlet: - minorities fighting for rights
Period of greatest activity? - 1950+

Subject of Biography
Gender - Female
Profession/status: - writer
Age: - 40's-50's
Biography of famous person? Yes
Ethnicity - Black
Nationality - Central/South American
How sensitive is this person? - soggy whimpering jelly muffin
Intelligence - Smarter than most other people

Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings? - 2 ()
United States Yes
The US: - Northeast
Century: - 1980's-Present

Style
Person - mostly 1st
Accounts of torture and death? - moderately detailed references to deaths
Commentary on society? Yes
Writer's slant towards subject: - very favorable
Story of entire life, or part? - story of nearly entire life
Autobiography? Yes
Pictures/Illustrations? - None
How much dialogue in bio? - little dialog
How much of bio focuses on most famous period of life? - 0-25% of book
How much is philosophy rather than life story? - 0-25% of book
Most similar books to A Song Flung Up to Heaven
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
There Are No Children Here by Alex Kolowitz
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama
With Ossie & Ruby: In This Life Together by Ossie Davis & Ruby Dee
Barbara Jordan: Breaking the Barriers by Ann Fears Crawford


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Maya Angelou Resident Scholar Profiles

TOP SCHOLAR:
  
alisa  

SCHOLARS:
David Fletcher  Judy Berman  


Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s).
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