This week's theme of identity lends itself to several interpretations. Identity can either be illuminated by the unique experiences that distinguish individuals or by the interconnections that relate seemingly divergent groups of people. Both perspectives have merit and are deserved of expression. Maya Angelou establishes a universal identity in her poem Alone, that serves to not only parameterize her position but also that of every other person regardless of their particular experiences.

Angelou begins this piece with a specific personal experience that she then broadens to accommodate the general population. This progression first gives the reader an opportunity to identify with the speaker's experience and then with the experience of a seemingly foreign population (that may in fact be more familiar than the reader would prefer). Angelou writes,

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

This stanza simultaneously introduces and expands on the theme of the poem that the title alludes to. Angelou's usage of "out here" in the last line of this stanza defines the space that she is writing about. This vague description is both inclusive and exclusive. It serves to include every geographic, cultural, and religious experience while also highlighting the experience as exclusively human. The second stanza solidifies precisely what this unifying experience is- the interdependence that we all have on one another. As Angelou writes, "Nobody, but nobody/
Can make it out here alone."

Regardless of individual circumstance or location the speaker argues that none of us are capable of making it on our own. An important component to interpreting this unifying experience is the speaker's precise definition of "making it". In the first stanza Angelou writes that the only way "to find my soul a home/ Where water is not thirsty/ And bread loaf is not stone" is to recognize that we cannot find happiness in solitude. It is not that we are incapable of surviving alone, but rather that we cannot truly live until we allow ourselves to appreciate and connect with one another.

Every individual is able to identify with this poem, as each of us struggles to develop and maintain the relationships that make our lives worth leading. Of course it is the loss or destruction of these same relationships that can leave us feeling inconceivably alone and isolated. Angelou does not deny this, as the first few lines hint at the speaker's own feelings of solitude. These feelings are the catalyst to her understanding of the truest human experience- interconnectedness. As the speaker explains, loneliness should not be a deterrent from engaging in relationships but rather a motivational force to seek each other out .

The speaker also explains the inherent lack of a substitute for relationships. She writes of "some millionaires/ With money they can't use", who neglect their wives and families in exchange for work and social stature. In turn, they rely on "expensive doctors/ To cure their hearts of stone". Hearts of stone- a diagnosis with no medical remedy. Only a human one. It is not until each of us accepts our reliance on each other for support, appreciation, and love that we will be able to cure the stone hearts that plague our world. We are all uniquely human, with an undeniable need to identify with one another in the face of our differences. For "Nobody, but nobody/ Can make it out here alone".

-e. gutilla