Maya Angelou

In “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, Maya Angelou uses her personal experiences growing up as an African American female to present her primary claim that even in trying times there is something to be grateful for. Angelou’s secondary claims are mainly comprised of stories from her upbringing as well as the description of her grandmother’s attitude even though they are living through times of extreme poverty. In Each of the stories she speaks of one circumstance that seems completely unbearable but yet ends with some sort of light at the end of the tunnel. This structure can also be seen in her description of her grandmother’s outlook on life. By formatting her essay in this way, Angelou is able to develop pathos as well as ethos with the audience.

Maya Angelou is a leader by example, she sets the standard by her actions and the stories she tells teaches the audience a lesson. Majority of her work is to inform us of the past and she wants us to learn from her experiences in life; she is a life teacher. The purpose of this poem was to inform us of the history of our country. The poem is titled “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” and her purpose of writing this is to teach the reader why the caged bird sings. Maya Angelou wants to put the reader in her shoes to get the ultimate experience of racial inequality but instead by taking the role of a caged bird or a free bird.

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.

Angelou was born in Missouri in 1928. She spent most of her childhood in Stamps, Arkansas, pre Civil Rights Movement with her grandmother and her older brother. Angelou is most known for writing the poem Caged Bird. In the first stanza about the caged bird, Angelou declares that the bird, “can seldom see through/ his bars of rage/ his wings are clipped and/ his feet are tied/ so he opens his throat to sing”(Caged Bird). Angelou uses the bird as a metaphor for oppressed African Americans during this time period; the bird is held back by a barrier, just like African Americans were held back by unjust laws, a corrupt legal system, and their white peers who saw them as inferior. Similar to the bird, Angelou felt held back by others, but she did not let the “bars of rage” hold her back from her potential so, like the bird, she “opened her throat to sing” and used her voice to protest for herself and those who could not advocate for themselves.

In spite of facing early setbacks that the average person likely would not recover from, genius poet, autobiographer, and playwright Maya Angelou turned her travail into brilliance and activism. Born Marguerite Annie Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri, Angelou personified resilience despite being raped by her mother´s boyfriend. In a violent turn of events, Angelou went on to testify against of her assailant and, as a result, her uncles found, beat, and murdered him. Due to extreme guilt and the magnitude of these early tragedies, Angelou became a voluntary mute up until she was about 13 years old (Maya 1). Although her childhood was full of tribulations, Angelou persevered and went on to graduate high school at 16 years old with honors and study drama and dance in college.

A powerful woman once said “ I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel” This powerful woman was a civil rights activist, writer and poet, Maya Angelou. Angelou grew up in 1928, in the midst of the Harlem Renaissance, a segment of time where African American culture blossomed and the punished souls of the African Americans were expressed through literature and song. As an African American woman, Angelou experienced first hand racial prejudices and discrimination. Angelou had a rough childhood, with her parents splitting up, and being raped by her mother’s boyfriend at a young age, which made her mute

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the autobiography of Maya Angelou, chronicling her life until the age of 17, before her rise to fame as an inspiring writer and poet. At age 3, Marguerite Johnson’s mother and father sent her and her brother Bailey to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas, a segregated Southern town. There, they helped their grandmother run her store until their teen years, when they would move to various cities including St. Louis, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, passed between their divorced parents. Throughout her early years, she experiences include being sexually assaulted, becoming mute, being homeless for a month, graduating from high school, and getting pregnant, all while experiencing racism and struggling

In Maya Angelou’s novel I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings the main character Maya Angelou struggles with her identity through out the novel. She first started to question her identity after Mr. Freeman raped her. Another time in the novel she questioned her identity was during the barbeque at the bathroom because she did not know which bathroom to use. The last time that she questioned her identity in the novel was when she questioned her sexual identity because she did not know if she was heterosexual or homosexual.

Maya Angelou’s 1969 novel I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, is an autobiography that revolves entirely around Maya Angelou, a black African American girl in the 1930’s-50’s, and her difficult journey through life. The novel circles the themes of racism, sexism, and the outcome of being raped. Angelou explains to the reader the different remonstrance’s she goes through every day and how she struggles to grow up without a mother or a father. The book begins with her explaining how her mother sent her and her brother Bailey off to live with their grandmother and uncle in Stamps and how her parents are divorced.

Plot Overview - I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings is a book that speaks solely on the upbringing of Maya Angelou, and on the accomplishments, yet struggles that make Maya the woman she is. It begins in California in the 1930’s. Maya and her brother Bailey lived with her parents at a very young age, but after their divorced they were shipped to Arkansas to live their grandmother. They called their grandmother Momma, because she was a parental figure to both of them. In her young years Maya struggled with the absence of her parents and that neglect from them. Along with this she struggled with insecurities about her beauty, because the common depiction of beauty around her were white women, and she didn’t look

"I know why the caged bird sings" is an autobiography by Maya Angelou. Angelou describes her childhood and the adversity she faced. She starts her coming of age story after arriving in Stamps, a small southern town, that was very religious, where her parents had sent her and her younger brother after they divorced. At the ages of 3 and 4, Maya and her brother Bailey lived with there grandma, Mamma, who was there mother fighure. During those early years in Stamps Maya faces racism and learns the stark difference between the worlds of the whites and colored. Growing up she struggles with not feeling wanted as a result of being abandoned by her parents. Around age 8 her father comes to visit and ends up taking Maya and Bailey to live with there

On a visit to her mother’s home in Missouri, Angelou was raped by her mother’s boyfriend at the age of seven; she was then struck with silence for five years straight, not talking to anybody but her older brother Bailey. After her mother’s boyfriend was found guilty of rape and release after trial, he was soon found dead later that day for his demise then became the cause of her five years of silence; as a victim of rape at the age of seven, Maya Angelou’s mindset has brought about the belief that her actions would hurt someone else if she continued to speak (Morris 58). Soon after that, she became a teenage mother after graduating from high school at just sixteen years old. She graduated in 1945 and gave birth to Clyde Johnson, who later changed his name to Guy (Morris 59). Being a sixteen-year-old student fresh out of high school and already harboring a child, brought about yet another problem into her life, attaining a job.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou displays several characters who each own a voice that they make their own. Throughout the memoir, the reader learns about Angelou’s life, including the people that she grew up with as a child. One of the main characters that had a significant impact on Angelou as she was growing up was her brother, Bailey. Bailey helped Angelou understand the life around her as she was trying to navigate the world. He was a strong role model that she could look up to. He looked out for her, whether it be by standing up to adults who called her ugly or giving her essential advice that only a big brother could. However, Bailey also had a life of his own that we, as the audience, learn about through Angelou’s eyes. Bailey faced several challenges as he grew up, but never failed to use his voice in his own, unique way.

Princes Anthonette Paulino English Composition II Professor Driver Maya Angelou was an outstanding African American author, poet and known civil rights activist who published various collections of poetry that made an impact on society. She caught the public’s attention with her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, discusses about her early life in the South where suffered from internal conflicts at a young age due to racism and being sexualy abused which prevented her from speaking. Angelou took advantage of her tragic past to tell a story and bring contribution to poetry.

In her autobiography, “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings,” poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou portray her struggles as a young black girl, growing up in the South. Through difficult and scaring experiences, Maya Angelou writes her autobiography to deliver her message. Angelou embodies a “caged bird” in her autobiography to describe the hardships of racism and oppression she faces as a young black girl.