The Horse By America Angelou Analysis

The image of the horse’s death has a colossal impact upon the narrator and her perspective on the importance of her father’s work start to change. She begins to feel a sense of shame and confesses that: “a new wariness, a sense of holding-off, in my attitude to my father and his work” (160). The tales she told herself also begin to shift in dialogue; as the narrator explains: “A story might start off in the old way….then things would change around, and instead, somebody would be rescuing me” (161). She not only mentions the type of men who save her but also questions her appearance and what she’s wearing. As the narrator becomes more “girl-like,” she becomes more self-conscious and begins to wonder if she “would be pretty when [she] grew up” (160). These subtle but important moments demonstrate the narrator’s conformity towards the gender norms she boasted so strongly against. …show more content…
The horse breaks free of the fathers grasp and escapes to the surrounding fields and yells at the girl to close the gate. However when the narrator reaches the gate, she not only leaves it open she “opened it as wide as [she] could” (161). It is at this moment where the narrator breaks from her self-imposed male identity and the desire to free the horse is greater than her desire to please her father. Knowing that the horse was bound to be slaughtered, the narrator felt no remorse by explaining “I did not regret it; when she came running at me and I held the gate open, that was the only thing I could do” (161). It is only through the slaying of this horse, that the narrator finally transitions into her appropriate gender roles and enters her rite-of-passage. At the end of the story her brother admits she let the horse