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.

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.

Maya Angelou tells of her life experiences and struggles in her book “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” that gives us insight about Maya’s life as a young black girl growing up in a time of racism. The novel discusses various forms of oppression that she had to face as well cope with them. Robert A. Gross wrote an analysis for Newsweek about the book and claimed that Angelou’s book is not only an interesting story of her own experience, but also a portrayal of a Southern black community, thus being a historic reference of the 1930’s. Joanne Megna-Wallace backs up Gross’s claim in her critique of “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and also stresses the importance of the novel as a historic book, and also discusses how Maya Angelou intended the autobiography to target the historic circumstances of the time period. However, these two analyses portray the novel in two completely different ways. Robert Gross views the novel as a well-written story that was cleverly thought out and racism has a slight impact on the main character’s life. He views the autobiography as being a beautiful story that portrays the warmth and understanding within the black community, whereas Wallace argues that Maya Angelou’s autobiography is way of exposing the horrific racist conditions that made up her childhood. She focuses on Maya Angelou’s struggle and the tragic events that made her the woman she is.

African Americans living in the south face a lot of hate and prejudice. The civil rights movement improved the lives of many blacks. Maya Angelou in her memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, uncovers the racism that blacks face and how Maya begins to think she is less equal that whites.

What was the effect of the Black fighter, Joe Louis ' victory over his white opponent?

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

came to Stamps unexpectedly. Having no choice, Maya and Bailey went with Bailey Sr. to go live with the mother, Vivian Baxter whom we know as Mother Dear. While Maya and Bailey were living with their mother and her family in Saint Louis, Missouri, Maya meets her mom’s fiance, Mr. Freeman. Being naive Maya initiated sexual acts with Mr. Freeman, however, Mr. Freeman took it too far when he sexually assaulted Maya. After going to court and hearing that Mr. Freeman died Maya isolated herself and didn't talk because she feared someone else will be put in danger. As Maya and Bailey were sent back to Stamps, Maya begins to admire an older woman, Mrs. Flowers who influences her. Mrs. Flowers tells her that "language is man's way of communicating with his fellow man and it is language alone which separates him from the lower animals," (p82). Mrs. Flowers is the one who shows Maya how to truly appreciate books and says, "Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning. This is very important to Maya because this is where she gets the inspiration to start using her voice for something good. This influences her throughout her whole life, and this is how we see and know Maya Angelou now. Books have been an important part of Maya's

“You are a piece of the puzzle of someone else life. You may never know where you fit, but others will fill the holes in their lives with pieces of you” (Bonnie Arbon). In the novel, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou, the protagonist, Maya Johnson, started off as a young African American girl who was diffident and self hating, and who later transforms into a confident, grown young women. There are various reasons that cause characters change however the most common are due to the additional characters/ people they choose to surround themselves around throughout life. Maya Johnson goes through this grand transformation based on the values that her “Mama” (Annie Henderson), brother (Bailey Johnson Jr.) and her mother (Vivian

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou is an autobiographical coming of age story set in the midst of the racially charged era of the Jim Crow Laws. Angelou’s novel explores the enormously influential first seventeen years of her life, as she struggles to overcome the seemingly insurmountable personal and societal adversities such as rape, race, instability, and insecurity. Angelou’s powerful depictions of the events of her early life immediately immerses her readers in the fact that life as a black woman in the 1930’s and 1940’s, meant forging a place in society that was not created for you. Angelou depicts her young life lacking stability and having a revolving door of people, both good and bad coming in and out of it. However,

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.

Maya Angelou was an American author, poet, dancer, actress, and singer. Her many accomplishments speak for her talent; however, Angelou was not always so accomplished and self-assured. Angelou’s memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, is a bildungsroman created by a progressive process of affirming identity and resisting racism. Angelou uses a sequence of lessons about identity and racism from helpless rage and indignation to forms of subtle resistance and finally outright protest to illustrate Angelou’s coming of age.

Innocence is strange. You're birthed with it and it shines brightly in the eyes of newborn babies. It embraces you, shields you from the harms and dangers of the world. Slowly, however, it withers away over the years like a tender rose until you’re left with the rawness of reality. This withering away is inevitable, but every person experiences their loss of innocence differently. In Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, the protagonist, Maya, experiences a wide array of discriminatory and tragic events throughout her childhood that cause her to gradually lose her innocence. On the other hand, in Elie Wiesel’s Night, Eliezer loses his innocence all at once after dealing with the hardships of the Holocaust. While Angelou utilizes a

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was written in 1969 by Maya Angelou, a female African American author and a poet. Although this book has been published many times, it was originally published in 1969 by Random House. This intriguing autobiography was also copyrighted in 1969 and it has a total of 285 pages.

Usually during in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings humor is most often ironic and more often than not it is situational. “Often, the same speaker would reintroduce the same topic throughout with little uptake from others.”(B) The most humorous aspect in the autobiography is the church fight scene. The sunday begins like any other Sunday but this was how it began, the book says, “Deacon Jackson, a tall, thin, quiet man, who was also a part-time Sunday school teacher, gave a scream like a falling tree, leaned back on thin air and punched Reverend Taylor on the arm. It must have hurt as much as it caught the Reverend unawares. There was a moment's break in the rolling sounds and Reverend Taylor jerked around surprised, and hauled off and punched

The African population has always been a group of people which has faced atrocious oppression at the hands of other developed countries. The society says that they have advanced from the earlier times but there is not much truth in that , still African- American people face major disparities whatever it comes to. The society actually has still not become post racial.