Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Ego Tripping


In the poem “Ego Tripping” Nikki Giovanni’s personality was greatly shown.  The title of this poem definitely explains the importance of this poem. In each stanza she would compare herself to people who held a large amount of power.  This incorporates how she would be considered “Tripping”, based upon the confidence she held in this poem. There was a lot of imagery present in this poem because she explains every detail of her examples.  However there was one example that stood out the most to me. “In the poem Nikki Giovanni says “My son Noah built new/ark and I stood proudly at the helm”. This line shows her idea of being God.  This was very unusual give that God is very powerful and could never be copied. This shows the speakers large ego, when she compares herself to people who could never be replaced. The structure of this poem is the total opposite from the previous poems. They show a sense of confidence and knowledge and uses capital letters throughout the whole poem. This could reflect the speaker’s mood, while she was writing this poem. The tone/attitude of this poem would a condescending, the act of feeling superior. When it comes to having a big EGO, we tend to believe we should uphold a superior attitude that doesn’t really reflect who we truly are.

1 comment:

  1. I thought that you analyzed the poem very well. You addressed the fact that Giovanni makes an attempt to put herself in the place of God which is like you said a irreplacable position.I want you to also look at the progression of power throughout the poem. WHen she started the poem out she put herself in the congo which was a place of uncivilized people. This symbolized a bad begiining. Then she progressed to pharaoh in the next stanza, then toositting beside Allah a god, then she states she became a God herself. We had similar appraches to the Poem Great job!

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