Harlem Hopscotch Essay Questions

What is the primary literary device at work in this poem?

Metaphor is the driving narrative and thematic engine of the poem. Every line in the poem is devoted to constructing and elaborating upon an extended metaphor linking the children's game of hopscotch with the Black experience in America, and especially in Harlem. The poem's sonic elements are wrapped up in this broader extended metaphor, largely imitating the uneasy, lively rhythm of a game of hopscotch—and, indeed, of a life tinged with discrimination and hardship. The speaker's concluding musings about leaving the game of hopscotch, meanwhile, suggest a conscious decision to extricate themself from the norms of a racist society.

Describe Maya Angelou's use, and modification, of the sonnet form in this poem.

While Angelou makes a variety of adjustments to the well-known English sonnet here, her poem recognizably takes its inspiration from the form—and makes use of the transformational moment known as the volta. Typical English sonnets consist of three quatrains and a couplet, as does "Harlem Hopscotch." However, Angelou adjusts the standard meter and rhyme scheme, opting for a less-relaxed sounding AABBCC rhyme scheme and short, trochee-packed lines, perhaps as a subtle commentary on the impossibility of relaxation under racist authorities. Yet the most important moment of the sonnet remains. A traditional English sonnet features a sudden shift, or volta, following line twelve—and so does "Harlem Hopscotch," which includes an ironic twist in the final two lines.