Connections

Oprah Winfrey Biography: Life and Career

Oprah Winfrey’s extremely popular show, Oprah has aired in over 100 countries in the world. Tupac Shakur has sold well over 80 million albums worldwide and is known as one of the best-selling music artists of all time. It is hard to believe that these two extremely successful individuals came from poor and dangerous backgrounds. There a many connections that can be made between The Rose that Grew from Concrete and Oprah Winfrey Biography: Life and Career addressing both the literal and figurative connections.

            Tupac’s book and Oprah Winfrey’s video-biography are related literally because they both grew up in poor and dangerous areas and later became very successful. As stated in the video, Oprah grew up with her grandmother and was always moving due to her mother’s changing jobs. Tupac’s mother was an active member of the Black Panthers. The Black Panthers were a revolutionary social organization which was formed for the protection of black neighborhoods from police brutality. Due to his mother’s involvement in the group she was very rarely around. Oprah ended up being molested twice at a very young age because her mother was never home. This is similar to how Tupac was involved in gang activity because his mother was not around most of the time and she could not watch over him.  Even though Oprah and Tupac did not have their mothers there to help and guide them they stuck to their dreams of becoming successful. Oprah started off as a news reporter and later received her own show due to her hard work and dedication. Tupac had a similar situation, he started as a roadie and a backup singer for smaller groups but later became known due to his dedication and musical talent.

Tupac’s book and Oprah’s video can relate in a figurative way because both of their stories can be seen as a metaphor. Both of their lives and their inspirational stories can represent the steps or the path that can be taken in order to overcome and get passed a childhood or environment that disrupts and deprives someone from succeeding. For example, Oprah spent much her child hood in poverty, just like Shakur. However they both followed their dreams and slowly but surely worked their way up to the top. As stated in the video, Oprah became more and more famous as time went on and due to her impressive work in the news industry she earned her own talk show. This is very similar to Tupac because he started as a hype man for underground hip hop groups and eventually worked his way up to becoming a famous and inspirational rapper. Both of their stories share the principal that if you put in work and stick to your dreams you can overcome any obstacle. Oprah’s video and Tupac’s book both carry out the theme and idea of that with hope, ambition and keeping your dreams you can reach all your goals no matter what.

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