My Name is Margaret

Maya Angelou’s story “My name is Margaret” is full of negativity and hatred towards Mr. and Mrs. Cullinan. Margaret begins her story by pointing out the differences between the white and black lifestyles. “While white girls learned to waltz and sit gracefully with a tea cup balanced on their knees, we were lagging behind, learning mid-Victorian values with very little money to indulge them.” Education is one the key differences that is pointed out in the beginning of this short story. “During my tenth year, a white woman’s kitchen became my finishing school.” Margaret as well as many other blacks during this time found herself in a situation that was unlike the rest of americans. Slavery was over, yet she needed to work. Working would become her schooling.
The tone of this story is full with disgust and hatred. Margaret constantly refers to Mrs. Cullinan as “poor woman” as if Margaret feels bad for this lady, yet there isn’t any pity in her tone at all. Margaret is disgusted by Mrs. Cullinan’s home, especially the fact that it is too large and too particular for a household with only two members. While the disgust of Mrs. Cullinan is bright as light, the disgust of her husband is left to one paragraph, or so it reads. Margaret rarely mentions Mr. Cullinan,yet when she does they are short paragraphs, with only a sentence or two describing him. This is where you can see the disgust of Mr. Cullinan. She mentions how he has two daughters from a colored woman, but they weren’t ever around. Margaret learns that she knows his two daughters (Coleman Sisters) very well and soon realizes why they don’t look like their mom at all, and also why Mr. Coleman was never mentioned or seen. There was no Mr. Coleman, just a Mr. Cullinan. Margaret wanted her feelings towards Mr. Cullinan to stand out,which is why she hardly mentioned him while ranting about Mrs. Cullinan. Mr. Cullinan had taken advantage of the Coleman girl’s mother and then left her to serve with the kids. In