The influenced influencer
A fan of Angelou's might place her on a pedestal, but she discourages this by revealing something very ironic indeed. She wasn't always a writer, nor was she always a famous hero. Before she was a writer, she needed to be inspired to write by people she admired. This should help her fans to remove the sting of influence. Should they be embarrassed by their lack of experience? No, because Angelou herself was once unexperienced. Then, through life, she was brought into her destiny.
Gangs and Civil Rights
Angelou wants her son to keep himself out of gang life, but he ignores her opinion because of the way he fits into the social narrative of his community. In light of this, she decides to teach him the correct way. Instead of joining a gang, she joins the Civil Rights movement. Her son's negative decision to involve himself in the criminal community led to her positive decision to involve herself as a hero in America's history. Now she has become an example for millions.
Art and freedom
Although Angelou's life is shaped and controlled by circumstance, this control often leads to beautiful poetry and writing with languishing, riveting depictions of freedom. The irony is that her desire for absolute freedom teaches her something about the sublime nature of reality, something that makes her into an excellent poet, by the way. She sees the strings that control the system, and she understands when she is free and when she isn't free.
The irony of marriage
Marriage was incredibly ironic and painful for Angelou, because she loves her husband, deeply, but he believed things about gender that she found untenable. For instance, he felt that she should be a servant to him, but she disagreed deeply. She tried for a time to be who he wanted her to be, but in the end, she left, because she knew that she could not be with him with his opinions of gender norms. Ironically, love for herself precluded love for him because of his unwillingness to sacrifice his pride.
The objectivity of travel
Through travel, Maya Angelou gets to see her experience in America with complete objectivity. Aspects of life that seemed plain and obvious are exposed for their dramatic irony, because many of the cultural assumptions are not shared between America and Africa. For instance, she sees the difference between interactions with the public, because in Liberia, being Black doesn't mean the same things that it means back in America.
