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I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Essay

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I know why the caged bird sings is an autobiography written by Maya Angelou in 1969. It is about her journey into becoming the well strong-minded women she is today, and in this book she talks about her childhood with her brother Baily Johnson Jr. The story starts with their parents leaving them alone on a train to Arkansas. But throughout her young life there was a lot of effects that were on her because she was treated so poorly from everyone and she is abused. These effects really changed her and conform her into the little girl that doesn’t like to talk because of all the abuse. This is what has happened to her and why it’s changed her life. When Maya was three, her and Baily were on a train with their real parents and in the middle of the train ride the parents ditch them and leave them all alone on the train. This is already effecting …show more content…

Growing up Bailey didn’t have his mother around, but he always had his good looks and charm to back that up. When he meets his mother for the first time he thinks she is stunning. He states that he is in love with her which is kind of weird because it’s his mom. But because he has never had a mother, it is like he has some emptiness in his heart because he has never experienced the love of a mother and now that he has finally met his mother he feels like he has to fill her in to fill that whole in his heart. Now he must leave St. Lewis which means leaving Vivian behind and this puts Bailey into a deep exile of depression like Maya. When they get back to Arkansas, Bailey starts to watch movies that the actress’s look like Vivian because he misses her so much. Bailey starts to look for a girlfriend to fill that whole again that Vivian left empty. So after a while Bailey finds a girlfriend named Joyce and he tries to forget about Vivian but this doesn’t really work for him as he continues to think about

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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.

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(Davis) “Caged Bird” is the poem which lead to Angelou’s autobiography “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” 1970, (Davis) and in 1979 was made into a major motion picture. (IMDB) This poem addresses the feelings of isolation and segregation which allows the reader to travel the path of Angelou during the social injustice

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