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Tension Between Facts and Artistic Intention

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Tension between Facts and Artistic Intention
Sharon Lee
ENG120
April 27, 2011
Leigh Clemons

Tension between Facts and Artistic Intention
An alarm clock rings, rooster crows, wife nudge he sleeping husband: these are but a few of the ways in which the new day begins for millions of people in America each morning. The wake up call may be followed by a warm shower, or hot breakfast, or for some, just a cup of coffee and a newspaper. Whatever the morning protocol might be, for many it is but a precursor to another routine day on the job. While the work day may be routine and even boring to many who work the day-to day jobs of ordinary people, the essayist who writes about the workplace must use his artistry to bring color and life to an otherwise mundane eight hours of drudgery.
However, his artistic licence has its limitations. His coloring of the work experience must not cross the line from reality, but must present the factual workings of the day in such a way he avoids creating a fictitious environment to which the common workers cannot relate. The line that separates the two in thin and the essayist must use every weapon in his arsenal to create fact-based literature that entertains an intrigue the reader into feeling as though he has experienced the day for himself. This means by which this mix of truth and art is achieved in the successful presentation of the essay includes a variety of literary techniques.
Maya Angelou, in her essay Cotton-Picking Time, painted four pictures for her readers in the short space of two and a half pages. First, she chose her vocabulary carefully in painting the picture of the cotton fields as the plant grew and the cotton bloomed. Her imagery of the plants turning “caterpillar green, then frosty white” touched the imagination of anyone who has witnessed the spring time in farm country. Whether it was watching the green fields turn to gold as the wheat ripened on the stalks or seeing the tiny white flowers blossom into plump juicy oranges, every farm boy and girl could picture the scene exactly as Maya Angelou remembered.
Second, she described the feel of the store before the opening of the doors and the arrival of the pickers. Within this scene the reader gets a glimpse of the sudden change that comes to the store with the opening of the door, as Maya Angelou describes her grandmother’s “sleep-filled voice” that prayed an early morning prayer before calling names an issuing orders. The complexity of the scene is felt in wordplay that mixed the harsh reality of her grandmothers “orders” and the softness of the lamplight “that made (her) want to whisper and walk about tiptoes.” It is this use of language that keeps the reality alive, yet allows the essayist to display the beauty of the scene. Third was the picture of excitement that filled her grandmother’s store each morning as the cotton pickers in the south prepared for their day’s work.
While hinting at the transition to come throughout the essay, Maya Angelou used word play and metaphoric imagery to make the transition a reality. She described the aromas that filled the store during the night, a mix of “onion and oranges and kerosene,” in a way that gave the reader a sense of quiet tranquility, a tranquility that would soon be disturbed by “the bodies of people who had walked miles” to get there. Anyone who has been in south at cotton picking times would know the early morning air is thick and humid and the bodies of those who had walked miles in it would be the complete opposite of the tranquil image brought on by the descriptions that proceeded. Maya Angelou immediate jump into banter of the customers making their morning purchases highlighted the change in atmosphere that came with the opening of the doors. There is no doubt that the sudden change fro long descriptive narrative language to short, quick dialogue has an emotional effect on the reader. In a matter of a few short sentences the tone of the essay changes entirely. It went from the quiet tranquility of the early country morning, with a hint of the excitement to come, to active anticipation of the work Maya Angelou used four descriptive words that completed the tome of the central scene of the essay. She said, “The Store was full of laughing, joking, boasting, and bragging.” This word choice gave life to the entirety of the scene and colored in the small corners of the readers’ imagination. The excitement she described in the opening paragraphs was overshadowed only by the imagery of the worn and dejected workers who returned to the store at the end of the workday. Unlike the first transition in tome, which had been hinted at throughout the opening of the essay, this final transition was abrupt and sudden.
The contrast between the excitement of morning and melancholy of the day’s end is vivid. The use of sudden tonal changes allows the essayist to give his readers a taste of the hardship of work without having to describe the minute details of the work day. Maya Angelou’s descriptive language wand wordplay allowed the reader to feel the impact of the day’s load on the pickers. Phrases like, “In the dying sunlight the people dragged, rather than their empty cotton sacks,” and its direct reference to the morning’s activity emphasized the emotional contrast of the two scenes. It is the harsh realities of life that keep the factual essence of the essay intact as the essayist incorporates his artistry into the scenes to bring beauty and color to the mundane events of work. The tension between the two must remain constant in order to maintain the truthfulness of the content, yet reveal the beauty of the art.
In reading Cotton-Picking Time any hardworking, middle-class, employee in any one of thousands of low income jobs could relate to the cotton pickers that Maya Angelou described. Waking up early to get the kids ready for school, packing bag lunches to save a few cents, and rushing off to work has the same feel as the scene painted by Maya Angelou. Yet, at the end of the day, while tending to the necessities of tomorrow and knowing that they are but further in debt, like the cotton pickers they find the courage and joy to begin anew each day.

Reference
Angelou, M. (1969). The Art of Work. “Cotton-Picking Times”, 0(0), 115-117.

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