Title
The book's title is taken from Matthew 18:19-20: "Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (King James version). While Angelou has acknowledged the title's biblical origin, she also stated that the title counteracted the tendency of many adults to lie to their children about their pasts. Scholar Sondra O'Neale states that the title is "a New Testament injunction for the traveling soul to pray and commune while waiting patiently for deliverance".
Critic Hilton Als believes that the title of this book may have an additional significance. A prevailing theme in Gather Together is how one Black female was able to survive in the wider context of post-war America, but it also signifies how all Black females survived in a white-dominated society. As critic Selwyn R. Cudjoe says, "The incidents in the book appear merely gathered together in the name of Maya Angelou."
Read more about this topic: Gather Together In My Name
Famous quotes containing the word title:
“Down the road, on the right hand, on Brister’s Hill, lived Brister Freeman, “a handy Negro,” slave of Squire Cummings once.... Not long since I read his epitaph in the old Lincoln burying-ground, a little on one side, near the unmarked graves of some British grenadiers who fell in the retreat from Concord,—where he is styled “Sippio Brister,”MScipio Africanus he had some title to be called,—”a man of color,” as if he were discolored.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If any ambitious man have a fancy to revolutionize, at one effort, the universal world of human thought, human opinion, and human sentiment, the opportunity is his own—the road to immortal renown lies straight, open, and unencumbered before him. All that he has to do is to write and publish a very little book. Its title should be simple—a few plain words—”My Heart Laid Bare.” But—this little book must be true to its title.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)
“It is impossible to strive for the heroic life. The title of hero is bestowed by the survivors upon the fallen, who themselves know nothing of heroism.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)