The Full Text of “Life Doesn't Frighten Me”
The Full Text of “Life Doesn't Frighten Me”
-
“Life Doesn't Frighten Me” Introduction
-
The American poet Maya Angelou's "Life Doesn't Frighten Me" was first published as a picture book (illustrated by the painter Jean-Michel Basquiat) in 1993. In this poem, a little girl claims that she's not the least bit frightened of—well, anything, from "panthers" to "tough guys." While her list of the things she's not frightened of might hint she's actually a little more scared than she's letting on, her bravado makes it clear that she has the courage to face her fears. This poem suggests that it takes real and admirable bravery to be a kid.
-
-
“Life Doesn't Frighten Me” Summary
-
The poem's speaker, a little kid, makes a list of all the things in life that she's not scared of, such as shadows and odd noises.
She's not the least bit scared of angry dogs or ghosts.
She's not the least bit scared of Mother Goose or rampaging lions.
She's not the least bit scared of dragons crawling across the bedspread.
All she has to do is say "boo!" back to these scary things, or tease them, or refuse to cry, or just serenely smile at them, and they run away in terror.
Life, the kid reiterates, isn't even a little bit scary.
The kid goes on: overhearing a fight in the streets at night doesn't scare her.
Nor do prowling panthers or sinister strangers.
Even going to a new school where the boys pull her hair and the girls are snooty isn't scary.
Don't think she'll be frightened, the kid warns, if you try to startle her with frogs and snakes. The only time she's ever even a little frightened is in her nightmares.
But she feels safe because she carries a magical charm with her: with its power, she can travel to the depths of the ocean without needing to come up for air.
Life, the kid concludes, absolutely doesn't scare her—not one little bit.
-
-
“Life Doesn't Frighten Me” Themes
-
Children's Courage Over Fear
In “Life Doesn’t Frighten Me,” a little girl puts on a brave face about all the terrifying things in the world. Nothing can rattle her, she claims—not “panthers,” “bad dogs,” or “shadows.” And yet, the very fact that she has such a long list of things that might seem frightening perhaps suggests that she finds the world a little scarier than she’s willing to admit. Regardless of whether she's being entirely honest with herself, however, this speaker feels she can handle all of the world's terrors simply by making fun of them, refusing to "cry," and smiling. The poem thus celebrates children’s courage and bravado and suggests that learning to “smile” in the face of fear can be a source of real power.
The poem’s speaker makes a long list of the things she’s not afraid of, mentioning perils from “shadows on the wall” to “lions on the loose.” While she might genuinely not be scared by any of these things, readers get the sense that she’s trying to name and be brave about fears she actually does have. Some of these things feel so specific that they must be her own bugbears: not everyone would list “mean old Mother Goose” as an enemy, for instance. Declaring that she’s not frightened, the speaker might unintentionally reveal just how frightened she often is.
And such fears are pretty reasonable: being a little kid in a big world is scary! The speaker’s list of fears doesn’t just cover imagined dangers like “dragons” and “panthers,” but real-life encounters with “tough guys in a fight” and “strangers in the dark.” Even a “new classroom,” full of hair-pulling boys and snooty girls, is a serious fear to face. Life might be doubly frightening for children, the poem suggests, because they have to grapple with both real and imaginary dangers, all mixed up together.
This overwhelming mixture of real and imaginary peril, the poem goes on, means that kids often have to reach deep inside themselves to find courage. When the speaker describes carrying a “magic charm” that allows her to walk on the “ocean floor” without taking a breath, for instance, the image suggests that she’s telling herself a story to give herself the nerve to face the world, conjuring up a comforting fantasy of invincibility—but also that she’s developing a deep-down faith in her own power and competence.
The speaker’s bravado thus seems both poignant and admirable. This little girl might often be frightened, but she’s also learning to stand up for herself and face her fears boldly. It takes guts, the poem suggests, to confront a scary world—but kids often rise to this challenge with panache.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-44
-
-
Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Life Doesn't Frighten Me”
-
Lines 1-6
Shadows on the ...
... me at allThe speaker of "Life Doesn't Frighten Me" begins this poem with lots of bravado. She starts by naming a couple of classic bedtime terrors: "shadows on the wall" and "noises in the hall." But neither of these scary things, she says, frighten her the least little bit—and nor does "life" itself. This will be a poem about the way that children find the courage to face a genuinely scary world.
The poem's first four stanzas all use the same shape: over the course of three lines, the speaker lists two scary things, then returns to her refrain: "Life doesn't frighten me at all" (or a slight variation, like "They don't frighten me at all"). And all those stanzas also use similar punchy, up-front rhythms. Listen to the sounds of the second stanza:
Bad dogs barking loud
Big ghosts in a cloud
Life doesn't frighten me at allAll these lines start with strong stresses, making the speaker sound forceful. And the parallel sentence structure of the first two lines of each of these stanzas makes it seem as if the speaker could go on listing scary things all day—and then scoffing at them. She sounds like one tough cookie.
But maybe she needs to make herself sound tough. In the first two stanzas, she's listed all kinds of terrifying things, from mysterious shadows and sounds to imagined "ghosts" in clouds to very real "bad dogs." The world, this poem already suggests, is a scary place for kids! Real and imaginary monsters lurk everywhere.
The speaker's refrain thus makes her sound as if she might be putting on a bold face—"whistling in the dark," as Maya Angelou herself puts it. The speaker might claim she never feels frightened, but she sure has a detailed list of everything that could seem scary!
-
Lines 7-12
Mean old Mother ...
... me at all. -
Lines 13-21
I go boo ...
... me at all. -
Lines 22-27
Tough guys in ...
... me at all. -
Lines 28-32
That new classroom ...
... me at all. -
Lines 33-36
Don't show me ...
... in my dreams. -
Lines 37-40
I've got a ...
... have to breathe. -
Lines 41-44
Life doesn't frighten ...
... me at all.
-
-
“Life Doesn't Frighten Me” Symbols
-
The Magic Charm
The "magic charm" the speaker carries with her is a symbol of her own power and confidence.
When the speaker explains that she's not afraid because she has a magic charm that allows her to travel to the bottom of the ocean without ever needing to "breathe," the image suggests that she feels a part of her is invincible. With this "charm," the usual rules don't apply to her: she can endure even what seems unsurvivable.
In other words: she has confidence in herself! The world might be frightening sometimes, but she knows she's got a kind of power "up her sleeve" that allows her to handle whatever life throws her way.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Lines 37-40: “I've got a magic charm / That I keep up my sleeve, / I can walk the ocean floor / And never have to breathe.”
-
-
“Life Doesn't Frighten Me” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
-
Refrain
The speaker's refrain shows off her bravado and self-confidence—and, the poem hints, helps her to feel a little braver.
Over and over across the poem, the speaker repeats the same line: "Life doesn't frighten me at all." Those words become the poem's heart (as well as its title): this speaker, the insistent repetition shows, is one brave kid.
Sometimes, the speaker even uses a slightly different version of her refrain to emphasize just how brave she is. For instance, when she mentions the dangers of "panthers" and "strangers," she changes her phrasing up a little, saying, "No, they don't frighten me at all." Here, she seems to be saying: Nope, no matter what you name, I'm not even a little scared of it!
Of course, maybe repeating this refrain isn't just a way for the speaker to tell readers how brave she is, but also a way for her to feel braver. After all, she lists plenty of scary things before she insists that "They don't frighten me at all." Her refrain thus starts to sound a lot like a spell or a battle cry, a phrase that gives her the strength to confront everything that does frighten her.
In other words: the refrain perhaps helps the speaker to banish every fear she names.
Where refrain appears in the poem:- Line 3: “Life doesn't frighten me at all”
- Line 6: “Life doesn't frighten me at all”
- Line 9: “They don't frighten me at all”
- Line 12: “That doesn't frighten me at all.”
- Line 21: “Life doesn't frighten me at all.”
- Line 24: “Life doesn't frighten me at all.”
- Line 27: “No, they don't frighten me at all.”
- Line 32: “They don't frighten me at all.”
- Line 41: “Life doesn't frighten me at all”
- Line 44: “Life doesn't frighten me at all.”
-
Parallelism
-
Epizeuxis
-
End-Stopped Line
-
Irony
-
Colloquialism
-
Allusion
-
Alliteration
-
-
"Life Doesn't Frighten Me" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Counterpane
- Kissy little girls
-
(Location in poem: Lines 10-11: “Dragons breathing flame / On my counterpane”)
Bedspread, quilt.
-
Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Life Doesn't Frighten Me”
-
Form
"Life Doesn't Frighten Me" is written in jazzy free verse that evokes the speaker's confidence and bravado. The poem's 13 stanzas change and evolve to suit the speaker's mood. For example:
- A series of punchy tercets (three-line stanzas) introduces all the things the speaker claims she isn't one bit afraid of, from "panthers in the park" to "dragons breathing flame."
- A long octet (an eight-line stanza) describes all the ways the speaker stands up to her fears, whether by saying "boo" or "just smil[ing]" contemptuously at them.
- A pair of quatrains (four-line stanzas) take a look at the speaker's "dreams" and her inner world, including the "magic charm" that keeps her safe.
- And a couple of single-line stanzas simply declare, "Life doesn't frighten me at all."
This poem was originally published as a picture book; readers can imagine how the changing shapes of the stanzas might create little pops of excitement as the pages turn.
-
Meter
"Life Doesn't Frighten Me" doesn't have a steady meter. Instead, it uses lots of different, playful rhythms that make the speaker's voice sound lively and bold.
While there's no regular meter across the entire poem, there are moments of repetitive rhythm. For instance, listen to the strong beats in the first two lines:
Shadows on the wall
Noises down the hallPunchy stresses come right up front here, making the speaker sound tough and confident. And the speaker repeats this stress pattern in the three stanzas that follow (as in, "Dragons breathing flame"). This links all of the things that the speaker isn't scared of; they all sound the same, reflecting the idea that no one thing is scarier than another here.
Now listen to what happens when the speaker describes how she confronts all the scary things she describes in lines 13-16:
I go boo
Make them shoo
I make fun
Way they runIt's also possible to scan these lines as follows:
I go boo
Make them shoo
I make fun
Way they runEither way, the boldest stresses clearly land at the end of each line, making the words that describe what the speaker is doing stand out. It's as if the last word in each line jumps out like a jack-in-the-box.
By playing around with where the strong stresses fall in each line, the poem helps readers to feel the speaker's courage and energy.
-
Rhyme Scheme
"Life Doesn't Frighten Me" uses a lively rhyme scheme that changes to reflect the speaker's feelings.
The poem starts with a series of four stanzas that follow this pattern:
AAA BBA
...and so on.
In each of the stanzas that works this way, the first two rhymes describe scary things: "Bad dogs barking loud / Big ghosts in a cloud," for instance. But the closing rhyme always comes from the poem's refrain: "Life doesn't frighten me at all." Punchy couplets followed by that bold refrain evoke the speaker's bravado: nothing frightens her, she wants the reader to believe. (And notice that the first stanza uses three A rhymes in a row—"wall," "hall," and "all"—to start the poem with a bang!)
The speaker follows that passage up with a stanza in which she describes how she defeats all the scary things she's just listed. Here, she uses a series of rhymed couplets, like this:
I go boo [A]
Make them shoo [A]
I make fun [B]
Way they run [B]Those couplets feel like one-two punches, ready to knock the monsters out.
Much of the rest of the poem uses similar mixtures of couplets and refrains. But toward the end of the poem, the speaker dips into a new rhyme scheme for a couple of stanzas, like this:
[...] magic charm [A]
[...] my sleeve [B]
[...] ocean floor [C]
[...] to breathe [B]These more complex rhymes invite readers to slow down and reflect on some of the poem's quieter and more mysterious moments: moments in which the speaker admits that she might be a little scared, sometimes, but knows she has the magic power to get through life anyway.
-
-
“Life Doesn't Frighten Me” Speaker
-
The poem's speaker is a bold little girl—a kid who's had to learn to be brave in a world that (secretly) "frighten[s]" her quite a bit.
Her long list of the things she's definitely not scared of sometimes feels sweetly childish: for instance, when she says she's not afraid of "mean old Mother Goose," readers get the sense that she might have gotten the heebie-jeebies from a picture of that folkloric figure on the cover of a book of nursery rhymes.
But sometimes, her fears feel all too serious. "Tough guys in a fight" and "strangers in the dark," for instance, feel like a lot for a little kid to handle. Through the speaker's innocent blending of mythical "dragons" and real-life "fight[s]," the poem makes the point that, to a child, the world can feel overwhelming, full of threats both imagined and real.
The speaker's bravado thus feels both poignant and inspiring: she is frightened, but she's facing up to life all the same.
-
-
“Life Doesn't Frighten Me” Setting
-
There's no clear setting in "Life Doesn't Frighten Me." All readers know is that the poem's speaker lives in a small childhood world: one only as big as the scary dark "hall" outside her bedroom at night, the "park," and the "classroom." But even a little kid's world, the poem points out, can feel full of oversized dangers. In her imagination, the speaker battles "dragons" and travels to the "ocean floor"—big, sweeping images that suggest she's dealing with deep fears. Readers might interpret the poem's setting as "life" itself—and life, the poem suggests, is often a frightening and dangerous place.
-
-
Literary and Historical Context of “Life Doesn't Frighten Me”
-
Literary Context
Maya Angelou (1928-2014) was one of the most beloved American writers of the 20th century. She first became famous for her memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, in which she describes her troubled childhood with an honesty and openness that many of her early critics found shocking—and many of her early readers found moving and inspiring. Over the course of her long career, she would write a whole series of memoirs, as well as many books of (often autobiographical) poetry.
"Life Doesn't Frighten Me" was published as a children's picture book in 1993. Angelou collaborated on the book with the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose eerie illustrations get at the poem's tension between courage and fear. Angelou herself once said that the poem was for children who "whistle in the dark"—that is, for kids who put on a brave face even when they're scared.
As a Black American poet and memoirist, Angelou saw herself as a member of a literary tradition that included writers like Langston Hughes and Paul Laurence Dunbar. She was also good friends with the essayist and novelist James Baldwin; the two were both major voices in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and '70s. In turn, Angelou has influenced countless people, from the cartoonist Keith Knight to the former U.S. President Barack Obama.
Historical Context
By the time Angelou published this poem in 1993, she had thought a lot about the dangers of being a kid in the world. Her memoirs tell some scary stories from her childhood: her stepfather abused her, and even as a little girl she had to confront a lot of terrifying racism in the small, segregated Arkansas community where she grew up. Childhood, she knew, was no safe haven, and children were not ignorant of the real dangers they faced.
But Angelou also knew that books and poems had been a lifeline for her in dark times, inspiring her and giving her courage. In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, for instance, she remembers a teacher, Mrs. Flowers, who taught her that words have huge power to do both good and evil, and coaxed her to speak again after she became mute in the wake of her stepfather's abuse.
This poem, first published as a picture book, might thus be read as a supportive message to young readers dealing with the same kinds of problems Angelou herself faced. The power of the mere words "life doesn't frighten me at all," the poem suggests, might help kids to strike a blow against fear.
-
-
More “Life Doesn't Frighten Me” Resources
-
External Resources
-
The Poem as a Picture Book — See images from the poem in its original form as a picture book illustrated by the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.
-
Maya Angelou's Website — Visit Angelou's website to learn more about her life and legacy.
-
The Poem Aloud — Listen to Angelou herself performing the poem.
-
An Interview with Angelou — Watch a 1993 interview with Maya Angelou.
-
Angelou's Obituary — Read Angelou's obituary to learn more about her life and her influence.
-
-
LitCharts on Other Poems by Maya Angelou
-
