The experience of Maya Angelou as detailed in her story "The Graduation" reflects the development of the writer during a difficult time in her life. She was a young black girl in the South, and the second-class status of the blacks in the society of that time is demonstrated in the way they are treated by the white power structure in the form of the local politician making use of this graduation ceremony for his own purposes. This incident in Angelou's life can be seen as illustrating some of the ideas of Charles Sanders Pierce as he explains the role of doubt in producing belief or knowledge.
Pierce begins with the difference between doubting and believing, citing the feeling of believing as an indication of the establishment of some habit in our nature which will determine our actions. Doubt is the opposite and has no such effect. Doubt, says Pierce, is an uneasy and dissatisfied state from which we try to extricate ourselves in an effort to pass into a state of belief. The latter is a state to which we cling tenaciously.
Pierce says that the irritation of doubt causes a struggle within us as we try to attain a state of belief, and he further says that the irritation of doubt "is the only immediate motive for the struggle to attain belief" (Pierce 24). The creation of doubt is the beginning of the struggle to achieve belief. Inquiry is the primary method, and the end of inquiry is achieved with the attainment of belief. How do we find belief? Pierce asks first why we cannot continue the habit of belief by taking any answer we may like for our questions and continually repeating it to ourselves. One problem is that evidence will appear that will counter the view we have taken, but some might be able to avoid this and maintain their views in spite of evidence. In general, though, Pierce rejects this idea as of any benefit and says in practice it is unlikely to succeed. We have a social impulse which is against its s...