"The Telephone" by Maya Angelou

Thesis: The personification of the telephone is a development of its previous comparison to the "spinstered aunt" because its activities are those typical of an older, unmarried woman. 

Body 1: The telephone's personified actions are a progression of the "aunt" simile because Angelou uses diction that provides the reader with the image of an older woman knitting a piece of fabric.
- The specific words Angelou uses to demonstrate the actions of the telephone are meant to create the mental image of someone, in this case an older woman, knitting. She says that the telephone "tats the day" (8); "tats," technically meaning "stitches fancily," portrays the idea that the telephone creates the day in the sense that it controls the direction in which the day goes. She also says that the telephone "crotchet[s] other people's lives" (8-9). The term "crochet" connects the literal idea of the aunt manipulating fabric at needlepoint with the metaphorical idea that the telephone "crochets" people's lives and determines what is going to occur. The one doing the act of crocheting decides what the piece is going to look like when it is finished; the aunt will create a new piece of fabric as the telephone controls the lives of those around it. 
- The next two terms Angelou utilizes when personifying the telephone are words whose denotations provide the image of something being altered or transformed. The terms "hemming" (12) and "darning" (14) are words typically used when speaking about tailoring clothing or changing some detail in a fabric. The words "tats" and "crotchets" are words more meant to suggest creation, whereas "hemming" and "darning" propose the idea that some sort of change is being made. Overall, the diction Angelou utilizes in the personification of the telephone is meant to convey the idea that it possesses the capability to control and change people's lives simply by existing.