What the exam asks
In Paper 2 (comparative essay, 25 marks), you write without the text, comparing how two literary works use authorial choices to create meaning. When using Angelou’s poetry as one of your works, you should discuss more than one poem to show knowledge of the whole work (Criterion A). “Alone” pairs well with poems like “Human Family” or “Caged Bird” on questions about voice, structure, repetition, endings or how writers address an audience (Criterion B1).
In the individual oral (40 marks), “Alone” is 37 lines in total, so the entire poem fits cleanly inside the 40-line extract limit. It works well for global issues under Culture, identity and community (such as the alienation produced by extreme individualism) or Politics, power and justice (how material wealth fails to satisfy human need).
Core ideas
Song structure and the widening scale
“Alone” is built like a spiritual or blues song: three stanzas of 10, 9 and 9 lines, each followed by the identical three-line refrain. Across the three stanzas, Angelou widens the poem’s lens from a single bedroom to the entire planet:
| Section | Focus and scale | Pronouns and figures | Role of the refrain |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stanza 1 + Refrain | Intimate, nocturnal self-reflection | “I”, “my soul”, “nobody” | A quiet, private realization arrived at in the dark |
| Stanza 2 + Refrain | Social satire of the wealthy elite | “some millionaires”, “Their wives”, “Their children” | A social judgement on why money cannot buy peace |
| Stanza 3 + Refrain | Prophetic warning to all humanity | “you”, “I”, “The race of man” | An urgent, collective plea before an approaching storm |
Rhyme, voice and the motif of stone
The poem rhymes loosely on alternate lines (home / stone / alone in stanza 1; use / blues and stone in stanza 2; know / blow and moan / alone in stanza 3). Every stanza ends on the refrain’s own last line (“Can make it out here alone.”), with a rhyme word for “alone” (“stone”, “moan”) a few lines earlier, so by the time the three-line refrain arrives it sounds inevitable.