ipl-logo

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Quotes

947 Words4 Pages

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” Essay

Imagine yourself on a train being sent to another state by your parents, at the age of 3 years old. You feel as if your parents simply don’t care about you anymore. Well, this is what happened to Maya Angelou. In her childhood, she dealt with problems such as parental abandonment, home displacement, sexual assault, trauma, and more. In “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou, she reveals moments of her life to show the impact trauma from sexual assault can have and how she relieved herself from that trauma as well as recovering from her abandonment throughout her childhood.

To show her issue with abandonment, the author shows how Maya felt when she got cut by Dolores and her father took her to take care of …show more content…

This quote shows how Maya’s father seems too “embarrassed” to take Maya to the hospital because he didn’t want to make a fool of himself or look bad in front of others. This shows Big Bailey’s selfishness and Maya’s unworthiness to him because he’d rather save himself from embarrassment rather than take his hurt daughter to get care of her wound. Maya was also ashamed of bringing shame on her father if people found out that she had been cut by her father’s girlfriend. How Big Bailey perceives his daughter is a lot different from how Daddy Clidell perceives Maya. Instead of being ashamed of Maya, Daddy Clidell is more “proud” of his daughter and Maya describes him as “the first father [she] would know”. Another piece of evidence from the book expressing how the author relieves her trauma of abandonment is when Maya ran away from her father’s house and found the junkyard when she said, “I was a loose kite in a gentle wind floating with only my will for an anchor” (Angelou 251). This quote uses a metaphor to describe Maya’s situation. This shows how Maya is always “floating” around in the “wind” because she never has one place to stay and call home.

Show More
Related

Maya Angelou Obstacles

740 Words | 3 Pages

III. a. Maya Angelou was an avid writer, speaker, activist and teacher. As a result of the many hardships that she suffered while growing up as a poor black woman in the south she has used her own experiences as the subject matter of her written work. In doing this she effectively shows how she was able to overcome her personal obstacles. Her autobiography “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970) tells the story of her life and how she overcame and moved forward triumphantly in spite of her circumstances.

Read More

Maya Angelou Sexual Abuse

802 Words | 4 Pages

Maya Angelou recalls the first seventeen years of her life, discussing her unsettling childhood in her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Maya and Bailey were sent from California to the segregated South to live with their grandmother, Momma. At the age of eight, Maya went to stay with her mother in St. Louis, where she was sexually abused and raped by her mother’s boyfriend, Mr. Freeman. Maya confronts these traumatic events of her childhood and explores the evolution of her own strong identity. Her individual and cultural feelings of displacement, caused by these incidents of sexual abuse, are mediated through her love for literature.

Read More

I Know Why The Caged Bird Cannot Read Analysis

1176 Words | 5 Pages

Maya Angelou is a well-known author whose writings are used in ELA classrooms around the United States. Many fans of literature hold her writings in high regard. The article “I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read” by Francine Prose is about Prose’s belief that American educators should not teach Angelou’s work to American students. Prose published the piece in 1999 in response to Angelou’s rising success and her writings being used to teach ELA. Prose believed that Maya Angelou’s work being used to teach literature was not necessary, as To Kill a Mockingbird was more than sufficient.

Read More

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Chapter 36 Analysis

313 Words | 2 Pages

In I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, the section I chose to analyze was chapter 36. In this particular chapter Maya feels alone, like her world is crumbling down around her. She didn't know how to approach the fact she was pregnant and about to have a baby. When she told daddy Clidell, he assured Maya that she “nothing to worry about”Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

Read More

Maya Angelou Why The Caged Bird Sings Analysis

1106 Words | 5 Pages

On page 119 in the memoir Why the Caged Bird Sings, written by the African-American author Maya Angelou in 1969, she describes how Marguerite decides to go against her boss, Mrs. Cullinan because she calls her Mary instead of her birth name. This leads her to protest by wrecking a China Vase which results in her having to leave her job. During this passage, the author shows how Marguerite feels oppressed by Mrs. Cullinan calling her Mary and how she ends up planning how she can escape her job. This can be seen through the use of language, context, and the surroundings. Through the use of language, the author is able to show how Marguerite feels the urge to resolve her uncomfortable situation while also showing how she feels relieved by her escape

Read More

Champion Of The World By Maya Angelou Analysis Essay

476 Words | 2 Pages

She shows us that despite the injustices that may occur, there will always be victory for those who truly deserve it. Maya Angelou's perspective as a young African American girl is described in Chapter 19 of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, titled Champion of the World. Her community is gathered to support Joe Louis, the former champion, in a boxing match that determines if he'll continue being champion or not. As the story progresses in her grandmother's and uncle’s store, the tone transforms from hopeful to defeated, to triumphant.

Read More

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Essay On Identity

410 Words | 2 Pages

Identity Essay “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” is an autobiography written by Maya Angelou, in which she takes us through the early chapters of her life. Throughout her childhood, her main caregiver was Annie Henderson, her grandmother. Miss Henderson, also referred to as Momma throughout the book, is a religious black woman who owned the only black store in Stamps, Arkansas. Her strength from decades of experience and discrimination as a black woman played a big part in how Maya established her values throughout life. In this document, we’ll be diving into how Momma is affected by ethnocentrism

Read More

What Is The Motif Of Identity In I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

1439 Words | 6 Pages

A father is meant to care for his children, be by their side, and provide them with nurture. These qualities of a father are not what we see in Bailey. Bailey had invited Maya to come to southern California to stay with him, but after she arrives, he continually pits her against Dolores, his young girlfriend. We see this action from Dad Bailey and it starts when he says to Maya, “Well that’s life” when Maya discusses her opinions towards Dad Bailey’s girlfriend. This goes back to what I was saying about Dad Bailey’s failure as a father as instead of clearing the situation between Maya and Dolores, he tells Maya to forget about it and says that rude acts and violence are a part of life and you need to live with it.

Read More

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Identity Essay

999 Words | 4 Pages

Maya’s experiences throughout her childhood and “adulthood” convey the idea that nobody can dictate someone else’s identity except the person themselves. Maya’s experiences throughout her childhood show the idea that nobody can dictate someone else’s identity except the person themselves. At only eight years old, her mother’s ex-boyfriend molested and raped her. During his trial, Maya lied about what he had done and denied that he’d ever touched her before he actually raped her.

Read More

Comparison Of I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings And The Necklace

547 Words | 3 Pages

Angelou's hopes and objectives give her the courage to face her challenges and motivate her to follow her passion and improve her quality of life. In her analysis of "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," literary scholar Patricia Liggins Hill points out that Angelou's writing is "an exploration of how the creative impulse...can transform lives" (Hill, 2015). In addition to influencing Angelou's identity, her determination to fulfill her dream of becoming a writer encourages others who encounter similar challenges to do the

Read More

Similarities Between I Know Why The Caged Bird And Sympathy

853 Words | 4 Pages

Maya Angelou, a writer, professor, actor, director, singer, civil rights activists, and poet, released “Caged Bird” as a part of her fourth poetry book Shaker Why Don’t You Sing? in 1983. The title references both her critically acclaimed autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “Sympathy”. “Caged Bird” shares many similarities with “Sympathy” as they both contrast the beauty of nature and Earth with the cruelty of life as an encaged bird, desperate to live freely but unable to escape their rigid cell. An allegory to slavery, segregation, and the injustices Black Americans face, Angelou adds to this image, a second bird.

Read More

Sympathy And The Caged Bird

678 Words | 3 Pages

In Maya Angelou’s, “Caged Bird”, the experiences of the free bird are compared to the caged bird. Angelou exhibits the caged bird’s anger by showing how it sees the “... bars of rage” through the lines, “But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage can

Read More

Caged Bird Analysis Essay

700 Words | 3 Pages

“Caged Bird” written by Maya Angelou in 1968 announces to the world her frustration of racial inequality and the longing for freedom. She seeks to create sentiment in the reader toward the caged bird plight, and draw compassion for the imprisoned creature. (Davis) Angelou was born as “Marguerite Annie Johnson on April 4, 1928 in St Louis, Missouri”. “Caged Bird” was first published in the collection Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing? 1983.

Read More

Compare And Contrast Caged Bird And Sympathy

1215 Words | 5 Pages

In the poems “Sympathy” by Paul Laurence Dunbar and “Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou, both portray captive birds that sing. However in “Sympathy”, the bird pleads with god for freedom, whereas in “Caged Bird” the captive bird calls for help from a free bird. In “Sympathy” the bird knows what freedom feels like since there was a time where the bird was once free, but now is trapped. In the first stanza the use of imagery revealed how freedom felt before the bird was caged.

Read More

More about I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Quotes

Related Topics

Open Document