I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Essay

The most important lesson that I learned this year was about self-acceptance, more specifically accepting myself for who I am and not being ashamed of my cultural background. The main two texts that I felt expressed this lesson the most was the autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings written by Maya Angelou and the graphic novel American Born Chinese written by Gene Luen Yang. In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou describes her life as she goes through a life-changing events that change

Comparing Two Compelling Memoirists A strong and influential memoirist is able to grasp the reader’s attention and dive into topics bigger than themselves. Maya Angelou, the author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, describes herself as neither a hero nor a victim as she recollects her past. Growing up, Maya Angelou not only suffered from white prejudice and gender inequality, she was presented with situations that made her feel powerless. According to Angelou, “The Black female is assaulted in

The great poet Maya Angelou once said in her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you” (Maya Angelou Quotes.) Angelou’s autobiography and words have inspired many readers and rape victims. One victim, fourteen-year-old Melinda Sordino, a fictional character from Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak, is inspired by Angelou after her own tragic date rape and subsequent depression and silence. Melinda relates to Angelou and is inspired

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. As the title of the autobiography reads, “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” is the metaphor Maya

During the timeframe of both Barbara Kingsolver’s The Bean Trees and Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, society held largely different expectations that limited men and women more than they do today. The Bean Trees is about a woman named Taylor who leaves her hometown, and is eventually left with a child, leaving her to learn how to raise it as a single mother. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is about the life of Maya Angelou as she grows up in America. In both of these novels, these

autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. In an excerpt from chapters one through five, Angelou uses colloquial language and parallel characters to show how racism in Stamps crippled her into believing that she truly was inferior to white folk. The lack of colloquial language in Angelou’s speech as a child shows her conflicting emotions because of the racist propaganda in her life. “Then they would understand why I had never picked up a southern accent, or spoken the common slang... because i was really

Religion is the backbone for stability when things are going wrong. It can be used as comfort for the future and can be a moral way of living life. In the novel “I know why the caged bird sings” by Maya Angelou, in this autobiography, it reveals the childhood or Maya Angelou and the hardships of growing up. She was abandoned by her parents when they had sent here and her brother to stamps Arkansas to live with their grandmother. From the beginning to end we see a growth in her character and this

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is an autobiography in which the author, Maya Angelou, recalls her childhood and teenage years as an African American child growing up in a racist world. There is something to be said about the childlike innocence that Maya encompassed as a child. The comment Maya makes in which she states, “I remember never believing that whites were really real” (25), is an example of adult Maya, the author of this novel, looking back and making a comment in the present time about

Throughout the novel, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, the main character, Marguerite Ann Johnson, goes through a lot during her childhood. When Maya was little she was living with her grandmother, which they called mamma. Maya’s brother Bailey also lived with them. One day their father came and took them to St. Louis and left them to live with their mother. Their mother, Vivian, lived with her boyfriend Mr.Freeman. For a while Maya started having nightmares and slept with her mother

Hate and prejudice. Are they justifiable? The memoir of Maya Angelou, titled, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, attempts to answer this question and many others. This novel focuses on the life of Marguerite Annie Johnson, a girl who lives in Arkansas with her brother, Bailey, their grandmother who goes by Momma, and Uncle Willie. Throughout her life, she struggles with many issues. When Maya was young, she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend; scarring her for life. She had to face her parents getting