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I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Theme Essay

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Maya Angelou is known as one of the most inspirational and most powerful women the world has ever seen. She was an author, poet, and civil rights activist. Her most iconic novel, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, is a memoir about her life and about her being a child residing in the South. She lived during a time of violent racism and segregation, while also struggling to make it through the Great Depression. Many aspects draw you in and hook you to this novel, but the most important aspect would be its powerful theme. Although one could interpret the general theme as her struggle to thrive through the prejudgement and harsh segregation of her time, there is one major theme that most do not fully recognize. Imprisonment. Throughout the novel, …show more content…

Growing up and reading exciting comics about heroes saving the day, she felt restricted by the laws of society and the way she was supposed to act as a young lady. She felt that she could not be as heroic as the boys in the comics she read, so she felt just as trapped by her gender as she does her race. Maya wished that she could be like the other boys and be the hero for once. Also, at one point in the book, she believes that she is a lesbian. She struggles to discover more about her own sexual preferences and feels trapped by the idea of “turning into a lesbian”. She states, “I believe most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity to be otherwise. They shield themselves with an aura of unavailableness (for which after a time they begin to take credit) largely as a defense tactic. In my particular case, I could not hide behind the curtain of voluntary goodness. I was being crushed by two unrelenting forces: the uneasy suspicion that I might not be a normal female and my newly awakening sexual appetite” (Angelou). This means that she felt rushed to prove to herself that she was normal. This eventually lead to her early teen pregnancy. She felt restricted by the roles that she was supposed to play, making her gender just another factor of

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in which she responds with “Yes.” Mr. Freeman then says “If you ever tell anyone what we did, I’ll have to kill Bailey.” She loves Bailey and didn’t want him to get killed, so she stayed quiet. If someone was put in Maya’s situation, they’d want to tell someone, but the risk of losing a loved one may not be worth the risk. Maya writing this book is a way for her to speak out about what she had gone through and to find her voice that she had once

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Maya Angleou’s novel both teaches readers the importance of perseverance and the unpredictability of life, along with presenting the reader with critical thinking opportunities through the use of strong literary devices such as metaphors to further strengthen her message. One of the most valuable

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On page 247 it says,"I was never again to sense myself to solidly outside the pale of the human race. " This is showing that Maya is seeing herself as a member of society and not an outcast. It also shows Maya needs to be reliable because everyone is counting on her to do her own job. This also includes the dance pub, there Maya

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When Maya’s father takes them to their mother and leaves, Maya has something happen to her that shapes her future in a way. She becomes mute, and is sent back to her grandmother in Stamps, where her grandmother helps Maya regain her voice by reading aloud. Maya eventually moves again, and despite being free from the segregated South,

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She specifically uses metaphors to relate her life experiences in a way that helps better explain the meaning of what she is saying. For example, she describes herself as "...a black ocean…"("Still I Rise" 33) which is such a beautiful way of saying she is a worldwide role model. Secondly, Maya Angelou depicts being oppressed by describing it as"...shoot me with your words…" ("Still I Rise" 21) This assists readers in interpreting the words as bullets that send a pain so intense that it knocks you down.

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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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Kept a no sense religious and moral training. Maya’s life was led to classic literature, primarily white writers, including shakespeare, Kipling, Poe, Thackery, and James Weldon Butler as well as black writers Paul Dunbar and Langton Hughes. Through everyone 's good time there is always some emotional damage. At the age of only eight Vivian 's boyfriend raped young Mayaa. To light the torch to the flame even more Maya was basically forced to testify against her abuser.

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Freeman sexually abused Maya, she is unable to control her body or words which signals the domination of her body by others. Even in the opening scene, there is a combination of Maya’s inability to control her appearance, words, and bodily functions. The inability to create a story about her body “pervades the remainder of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings as Maya struggles to cope with her emerging womanhood” (Vermillion 252). Instead of letting the mute and sexually abused Maya represent the black female body in her text, she begins to reembody Maya by critiquing her admiration for white literary speech and writing.

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In the memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou forms a connection with her reader through relatable stories with intimate details of her discomfort to convey her message of the hardships she faced as being an outcast in a community that is full of outcasts from society. Angelou at a young age wants to her peers to accept her, but instead, when she pees her pants in church, she ends up yet again an outsider as “giggles hung in the air” from the other Sunday school children (5). She uses descriptive words and phrases to trigger the reader to remember times in their life when they had gone through an uncomfortable and embarrassing situation. Not fitting into the community Angelou believes that she should be white, but instead, something

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“I WOULD BE A CONDUCTORETTE ND SLING A FULL MONEY CHANGER FROM MY BELT”Maya was told she was not going to be successful because of her skin tone. Maya was discriminated against and judged her whole life but something inside her would not let her stop striving for success. The historical setting of I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, encouraged Maya to be a strong and persistent person because of events that occurred in her life. There had been many female streetcar conductors; however, there had not been any African American female streetcar conductors.

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There are many wonders to why was this piece was titled “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” There are also many examples to answer this powerful question. This title has really been eye opening to show what differences people had in an era years ago. Racism was a big answer to the questions of why this book was titled the way that it is.

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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.

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Maya has many famous books, but her autobiography: I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, is one of the well known things she has written. In the book I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings she writes about her seventeen years of life, then she continues to write about her life in another autobiography. In chapter 4, page 22 she describes

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Maya’s grandmother lived in a black community where she owned a general store that served food and sundries. She also owned a extra house the she rented out to a poor white family that occasionally came into the store to harass her and her family.(Telgen 134) During the depression Mrs. Henderson was able to lend out money to poor black and white families. Maya and her brother Bailey learned many things from there grandmother which was how to be kind ,they became wise, and she taught them how to be confident, she soon became their role model- yet she was strict she taught them cleanliness, godliness, and the respect for others .

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“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.

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