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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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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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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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Maya Angelou’s life was far from normal and smoothe, quite frankly, her life in the beginning was as rocky as a mountain. According to CNN’s timeline of Maya Angelou’s life,her parents had split up at a very young age, having her brother and her live with their grandma. Not even 10 years later, her mother’s boyfriend had raped her at 7 years old and before he could be sentenced off, it was said her uncles had murdered Freeman( the boyfriend). Even if that man had done something unforgivable to her, she felt responsible for his death and became mute for 7 years. These events in her life so far were the reasoning and inspiration to write one of her best selling books, “I know why the Caged bird Sings”, which is about her perspective on the events of her early life and how she became stronger from those

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