I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Analysis

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a memoir written by Maya Angelou, discussing her life after being sent, by her mother, to her grandmother at three years old with her brother. As a child, she was a witness and a victim of the atrocities of society. Throughout this book, the readers will see many types of tone in many different parts of the story while reading.

In Angelou’s memoir I know Why the Caged Bird Sings, she reminisces on her past childhood experiences and memories of growing up in the south. She gives specific examples on how the world was then and how poorly her people were treated. She explains how and what she had to do to overcome various obstacles that crossed into her life and how it affected her in the long run. She also provides many examples of her positive and negative traits growing up and with these, she has learned many life lessons that contributed in developing the herself as an adult.

Maya Angelou was a civil rights activist, author, and poet. She wrote many books and poems that conveyed the vivid experiences in her life. Maya Angelou’s works are well known and she is an eminent writer. One poem in particular that is well known is “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” written in 1969. In this work she described racial inequality, and the lack of freedom African Americans experienced in the 1930’s and 40’s. Maya Angelou uses many Rhetorical strategies and literary devices to describe the lack of racial freedom in the world at this time.

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.

A child to express. Maya was a girl who felt unwanted and lost by her own family then she met Mr. Freeman a man who cared

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, an autobiographical novel written by Maya Angelou, was published in the year 1969. The novel follows Maya as a young girl facing challenges such as racism and sexism following the civil rights movement. While reading the book, the reader is introduced to events in history such as the Great Depression and World War II.

The memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is an autobiography written by Maya Angelou as she grew up in the mid-20th century, where being a black girl and facing racial issues in society, had to overcome many problems that show the larger issue of the time period. I chose this book over the other nineteen memoirs because of the strong recommendations I received from my fellow class mates, and because of my interest in racial issues during the terrible times of segregation. Life was not fair, and Maya Angelou had to face a lot during the 30’s and 40’s in order to try to live a normal lifestyle and become a confident person. Maya shares her story with us to increase our knowledge of racism, prejudice, unequal treatment of women, and sexual

However, Maya, the viewpoint of the novel, as a woman who hasn't lived this TRUE American life style. Like said, “In Stamps the segregation was so complete that most Black children didn't really, absolutely know what whites looked like. Other than that they were different. To be dreaded, and in that dread was included the hostility of the powerless against the powerful, the poor against the rich, the worker against the worked for and the ragged against the well-dressed. I remember never believing that whites were really real. ” (Angelou, 25) Maya illustrates the quantity of racial discrimination between the white and the blacks. That the segregation was in a sense said “complete” and never had the black seen the whites. Maya is once told in the novel that she was “the Uglies” and had told Bailey that was actually a beautiful blonde hair and she was in a nightmare trapped in this “African American” body. This act by Maya really says her individual characteristics that she is equal upon all American, and is not to be look down upon. In a sense, American isn't supposed to be a point to be judged upon racial features, but an individual who wants to strive and succeed for greater

In Maya Angelou’s autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, she highlights the struggles of segregation and oppression throughout her adolescent years. Maya Angelou’s metaphorical title represents all the black people, blackbirds, who society cages, but still trying to resist the odds that are against them. Though Angelou faces cruelty throughout her whole life, she always believes in her intelligence. When she and her father go to Mexico, her father becomes very drunk and unable to drive.

She reflects on the segregation in her small town, and what her life was like as a child. At this point in Maya’s life, she sees “whitefolks” (25) as something that she isn’t sure exist. She didn’t know what they looked like, and they didn’t live in her world on her side of town, so they weren’t considered people to her. Maya understood what other people were telling her, especially that people on the other side of town were something to dread because they had all of the power in the segregated world, and African Americans had none

Maya Angelou’s classic novel I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a tale of an African American family facing racism, oppression and prejudice acts in the deep south of Stamps, Arkansas in the 1930’s and 1950’s. Throughout Maya’s early childhood she suffers from traumatizing events, that leads to her powerful voice of inspiration that challenges the dominant ideology of racism. Throughout Maya’s novel her tone can be summarized as personal, scorn, and serious. Her purpose of writing I know Why the Caged Bird Sings was to tell her and her family's story of survival; resilence. To grace the world with enlightenment on how strong the African American community could be if we were to work together.

Stephen Butterfield, a critic of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sing by Maya Angelou, encompasses the gravity of motherhood and the impact it holds on a child through a single statement: "Continuity is achieved by the contact of mother and child, the sense of life begetting life that happens automatically in spite of all confusion—perhaps also because of it" (213). Marguerite Johnson, the protagonist in Angelou’s literary autobiography, experiences a consistent yet changing motherly connection—with her mother, Vivian Baxter, both of her grandmothers, and Bertha Flowers, an aristocrat in Stamps, Arkansas; these relations contribute to Marguerites development of self-confidence and self-awareness in the early stages of her life. Through these relations

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,

In her situation, three years old is a very young age for a child to even begin to comprehend the changes occurring in their life. With a lack of explanation, she can only concoct the belief that she did something wrong to cause this drastic turn of events: “The gifts [open] the door to questions that neither of us [want] to ask. Why [do] they send us away? and What [do] we do so wrong? So Wrong? Why, at three and four, [do] we have tags put on our arms to be sent by train alone from Long Beach, California, to Stamps, Arkansas...” (Angelou 52) Maya’s lack of expertise on divorce leads to a sense of wrongdoing and abandonment that she takes personally. Her deprivation of strong parental figures consistently throughout her life allows for some of her fundamental understandings of the world to be

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings is a novel by Maya Angelou, where she writes about her childhood and her experiences while growing up. This non-fiction novel illustrates Maya Angelou’s childhood, being tossed around by her parents, and having to experience different cultures. Maya struggles particularly in finding friends, she is reserved, and will only open up to Bailey, her brother. Maya moves a couple of times to different places, which may contribute to her not having friends. The novel revolves around Maya Angelou, Bailey, and her grandmother, evolving through life from being a child to a teenager. This novel is set in the “South”, in America.