What the exam asks
In Paper 2, you write a comparative essay on two literary works without the texts in front of you. To score top marks in Criterion B1 (analysis and evaluation of textual features and broader authorial choices) and Criterion B2 (comparative analysis), you must examine how Angelou’s structural choices—such as her shift from rapid couplets to slower quatrains—create meaning, rather than merely describing the speaker’s chores. When using Angelou’s poetry as a work in Paper 2, pair “Woman Work” with at least one other poem from your collection (such as “Phenomenal Woman”) to show knowledge of the whole work.
In the individual oral, the entire 30-line poem fits comfortably within the 40-line extract limit, making it an ideal literary extract for a global issue related to gendered labour, economic dispossession, or the human need for rest.
Core ideas
The two-part structural turn
“Woman Work” is built on a dramatic two-part structure across its 30 lines, using rhythm as meaning:
| Feature | Part 1: The Chores (Lines 1–14) | Part 2: The Elements (Lines 15–30) |
|---|---|---|
| Stanza form | One continuous 14-line block | Four separate 4-line stanzas (quatrains) |
| Rhyme scheme | Tight, insistent rhymed couplets (AABB...) | Open, slower ballad-like rhyme (ABCB) |
| Syntax and grammar | Anaphoric list of infinitives hung on the opening “I’ve got” (restated only as “I got” and “I gotta”) | Second-person apostrophe and imperative verbs |
| Register and pace | Everyday, colloquial “work-talk”; rushed and breathless | Lyric, prayer-like invocation; measured breathing space |
Voice and historical location
Angelou’s speaker begins in the middle of domestic duty—childcare, mending, cleaning, and cooking—before widening to agricultural field labour. By placing “cane” and “cotton” alongside cleaning a “hut”, Angelou locates the speaker in the rural American South and within the historical lineage of enslaved and sharecropping Black women. Her labour is both domestic and agricultural, and almost all of it is done for other people.