Essay about Caged Bird

When Maya has friends over she tries to keep them sheltered from that part of her life, because she doesnt want them to know about the kind of culture she belongs to. When you look out into the world many people relate to Maya, they all want to hide the kind of culture they grew up in and the kind of lifestyle they live in. These people will hide who they are on a day to day basis because of their culture. These people try to avoid the question “whats that” or “why is that hung up and what does it mean” or they just want to avoid being bullied because of

The purpose of this paper is to introduce, discuss, and analyze the novel I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. Specifically it will discuss the themes of racism and segregation, and how these strong themes are woven throughout this moving autobiography. Maya Angelou recounts the story of her early life, including the racism and segregation she experiences throughout her formative years. With wit, sincerity, and remarkable talent, Angelou portrays racism as a product of ignorance and prejudice. However, she finds the strength to rise above this crippling condition.

When Maya returns to Stamps after spending time with her mother, she endures the shame of having been sexually abused by Mr. Freeman, her mother’s boyfriend. Maya stops speaking to everyone except her brother, Bailey. Her real mother accepts her silence at first as trauma, but she later gets angry at Maya’s “disrespectful behavior”. Much to Maya’s relief, she is sent back to live with Momma in Stamps along with her

For one thing, not only is Maya a girl, but she is an African American as well. This means there is the added factor of racism on top of society’s expectations for her. These two combined lead Maya to have very little self-esteem and confidence in herself. From a young age, she believed she was ugly, comparing herself to her brother Bailey saying, “When I was described by our playmates as being shit color, he was lauded for his velvet black skin” (22). She is constantly teased for her appearance because of her skin color, and believes the horrible things people say about her. Angelou shows us that the pressure from society to be attractive and beautiful suffocates her, and that she is under the belief that she is ugly for the majority of her childhood. This, along with her parents leaving her and her brother when they were only three and four respectively, makes Maya feel unwanted. Incidentally, it does not help when she notices a pattern for the heroes in the books she reads. Maya praises an author named Horatio Alger, claiming he was “the greatest writer in the world. His heroes were always good, always won, and were always boys” (75). Maya notices that heroes were always depicted as boys, and it makes her wish she had been born a boy as well. The lack of representation of female heroes makes her, and possibly many other little girls, feel as if there is no possible way they would achieve

An example of Maya facing racism is during her eighth grade graduation. Maya was so excited to graduate. The school she attended enrolled both whites and blacks. First of all during the assembly the blacks had to recite their own national anthem titled “ The Negro National Anthem”. The principal gave a speech the the students and instead of treating the kids equal, he proudly stated the new achievements the whites were going to have, and

Maya’s younger years were filled with pain and tragedy. When she was only three years old, her parents separated, moving Maya and her brother into the home of their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. While growing up in this area, Angelou became aware of the discrimination and racism that was prevalent during this time in America. (Hyperlink.com) At the age of eight, Angelou was reinstated into the care of her mother. It was during this time period that Maya was sexually abused by her mother’s boyfriend. Shortly after this incident occurred, Angelou became mute and would not speak again for five years. This time period in Maya Angelou’s life would

During her graduation, two speeches were given, one was from a fellow black student who directed his speech in the way of pathos in which he tried to evoke emotion and motivate all the students to be their best despite their backgrounds. The other speaker was a white man, who was an elected official and went more the way of ethos, using ethical words, which made him lose the audience. He implied that all the white kids would go on to do great things and all the black kids would go to be athletes or do some sort of social work. In Maya’s essay titled “Graduation,” Angelou mentions “The white kids were going to have a chance to become Galileos and Madame Curies and Edisons and Gauguins, and our boys (the girls weren’t even in on it) would try to be Jesse Owenses and Joe Louises” (51). From this quote I can resonate with the fact that people, including my mother thought that white kids had more of an opportunity to be great as opposed to minorities, which is why she moved me so I could be a Galileo, or a Madame Curie. Also, that shows how I might relate to Maya in the fact that even though they are two completely different times, the reality is that based on race or being colored there is a pre-placed weight on one’s shoulder to break past that. Another quote that resonated with me personally is when Angelou discusses the speech made by Henry Reed- “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” (Reed qtd. in Angelou 53). I personally think that this quote compares Maya and I’s thinking because she felt like she had no control over her life and it was determined, and at one point my mother felt like that was going to be my path, however we both chose to be the “captain of our own soul”. I could of chose to be a stereotype and be like the majority but I decided to take my life into my own hands

In the book, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, by Maya Angelou the main character is Marguerite Ann Johnson (Maya). She is portrayed as a mature young girl suffering from the traumatic events associated with being a black female in America. She is said to be a smart and imaginative person. Maya felt that people judge her unfairly due to her awkward appearance. She fantasized that she actually was a blond-haired, blue-eyed girl trapped in a “black ugly dream” and would soon wake up and reveal her true identity. She faced three obstacles in the south white prejudice, black inability, and female subjugation.

The loss of self-identity contributes to the loss of communication. Maya becomes mute due to the witnessing of a Sikh’s death on the hands of a Hindu. Self to self thoughts such as, “is my silence unfounded? No I do not deserve to be found. Or loved. ...sometime there's nothing left to say to another human being” (170-171). lead to Maya embracing her silence. Maya completely shuts down her sense of communication between others and herself due to the traumatic alienation that affects her. Alienation causes her to go under a mental state that promotes her isolation towards the world and full independence on herself, which results in the confusion of who she really is. The loss of identity causes her to become a vulnerable part amongst the environment she lives in. In addition, the loss of self identity promotes in the decrease of cultural identity preventing a positive world view. The reality of Maya’s Hindu and Sikh names, “really mean— is that [she] was born into a division that began long before [her]” (34). Also, as Ammar makes remarks about how “Maya means delusion,” and it, “is what Sikhs tries to escape from during his life on earth” (38). Maya begins to cry. The cultural differences that Maya lives through did not start from the external environment but rather from her own family at a very young age. She has been exposed to cultural identity crises that her parents fought over and which leads to a

She raises Bailey and Maya as if they are he own kids. Through the novel Maya never had a father figure, but she had Momma. An independent black woman. Momma owned her own store, took care of her crippled son and took care of her two grandchildren. She is a religious and a strong woman. Growing up Maya always questioned why Momma did some of the things the way she did, for instance one time some white children called Momma names and mistreated her, but she did not budge. Maya thought, “Who owned the land they lived on?... If there was any justice in the world, God should strike them dumb at once!” (23), Maya is thinking about retaliation, but does not realize that there can be serious consequences. Kinsolver exemplifies with this quote that society separates black and white and gives power to only the whites. Maya thinks otherwise, in that they should be equal and this is her first step of breaking societal expectations. As Maya matures she learns how to be more womanly and independent from

“The needs of a society determine its ethics, and in the black American ghettos the hero is that man who is offered only the crumbs from his country 's table but by ingenuity and courage is able to take for himself a Lucullan feast. Hence the janitor who lives in one room but sports a robin 's-egg-blue Cadillac is not laughed at but admired, and the domestic who buys forty-dollar shoes is not criticized but is appreciated. We know that they have put to use their full mental and physical powers. Each single gain feeds into the gains of the body collective” (Angelou 218). Maya believes that blacks are being robbed of their lives and freedom to explore, grow, and succeed. This statement shows that ones with the very little they have will utilize it completely and have that to their advantage, and then they will succeed. Racism and prejudice are large factors that shapes Maya’s autobiography and eventually motivate her to ignore all of the negative influences and build her confidence. There are also many violent events towards blacks that show Maya the severity of prejudice in her society. One day when Maya was at the store a fight was on the radio where a black man and white man were battling in a boxing ring. When the black fighter Louis was getting beaten Maya thought, “It was our people falling. It was another

Maya’s upbringing as a child is very parallel to Taylor’s because she is raised by her grandma, whom she calls Momma, without an affective paternal figure in her life. As a child, Maya sees that her grandma successfully raised her and her brother on her own. Momma owns a shop in their town called, The Store and she runs it generally by herself. She makes an effort to protect Maya and Bailey from being mistreated in society because when the dentist refuses to attend to Maya’s needs, Momma tells the dentist, “I wouldn’t go press on you like this for myself but I can’t take No. Not for my grandbaby” (Caged Bird 189). Momma asserts her power in demanding service for her granddaughter and shows Maya that she is strong and possesses the power to be successful in society and overpower a male in some circumstances. Maya watches her grandma in this situation and instantly categorizes her as a powerful woman and looks up to her even more now. Maya visualizes her Momma as a form of a hero because, “Momma had obliterated the evil white man” (Caged Bird 191), because she stood up to the white dentist that is seen as evil in her family’s eyes. Maya then realizes that Momma is one of the more powerful black women in society that is able to stand up to the white race when the blacks are mistreated. Maya can then exert her

Maya was a fighter who suffered most of her life with female bond. One of her features is quite interesting was her strength. Even though she experienced a variety of problems in her life, she never gave up and she kept pushing for the prosperity of her life. Maya Angelou is a woman with a strong character. She teaches how to keep ourselves up

Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya shields herself against the confusion of St. Louis by reading fairy-tales and telling herself that she does not intend on staying there anyway. Vivian works in a gambling parlor at night. Maya pities Mr. Freeman because he spends his days at home waiting for Vivian to return. Maya begins sleeping at night with Vivian and Mr. Freeman because she suffers from nightmares. One morning after Vivian has left the bed and the house,

Maya Angelou describes what her life with her grandmother is like while constantly being discriminated against her race. She then found her father, and he leaves Maya and Bailey off to their mother’s house. There, the mother’s boyfriend rapes Maya. After suffering from psychological shock, Maya then moves back to her grandmother’s. As a teenager Maya gets nervous about her sexual identity and tries to discover it. Through these harsh times, the naïve and softhearted Maya grows to become a strong, independent woman.