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Maya Angelou's I Know Why The Caged Bird

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Maya Angelou was one of the most influential literary phenomenons, who created numerous inspiring works and paved the way for many African Americans, while facing discrimination and prejudices. She gave people hope through her countless works of literature and gave people an understanding to what it really feels like to be an African American. Throughout her life, Maya had a very traumatic childhood. Her parents, Vivian Baxter Johnson and Bailey Johnson, had gotten a divorce when she was 3 and she as well as her brother, were sent to live with her grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. There, she felt the prejudices that the town was filled of. On a visit to her mother, she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend at the age of 7. He was later sent to prison but released and was killed by Maya’s uncles as an act of vengeance for his crime. She felt as though her words she used to testify against …show more content…

She helped him establish the Organization of Afro-American Unity, which later disbanded when Malcom was assassinated in 1965. Maya also became friends with Martin Luther King Jr in the 1960s. He was assassinated on her birthday in 1968 which made her stop wanting to celebrate her birthday for a number of years. With the two tragic deaths in Maya’s life, she wrote a memoir indicating the experiences that happened throughout her life.”I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” talks about the childhood that Maya had, all the way to the birth of her son. This poem became the first nonfiction bestseller written by an African American female. This was a New York Times running bestseller for two years. The hardships that she encountered in her life made her strive to make change in the world by writing poetry and books about her life and feelings. Most of her works have shown people the true emotions and feelings of what it means to be a African American female in one of the most discriminating times in

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I said No.” This shows us Maya thinks how she thinks other people want her to think, and not how she herself would have answered. This leads us to believe that maya is not confident in herself to make the right decisions on her own and trusts the thoughts more than her own. As a child when you are the most impressionable, it is not wise to let a child rely off of someone else’s decision making skills and the child would become to dependant on others. Also in this book it

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Angelou faced much prejudice and discrimination firsthand throughout her life. Through these experiences as well as others, Maya Angelou was able to make personal connections

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She showed all African American women and men that they can achieve the impossible and have an intelligent mind like everyone else. Even African American poets from today like Alice Walker found her as an inspiration. In one of her poems about being brought to america, she perfectly summarizes what the struggle was being a slave that is equal to everyone

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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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In the autobiography I Know The Caged Bird Sings: Maya Angelou, the story begins in California where three year old Maya Angelou and her four year old brother leave they're father to go live with they're paternal grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. They're grandmother runs a store there, which is the center of life in the Negro community of the town. Maya starts reading and enjoying literature while she is in Stamps, Shakespeare especially, along with other prominent black writers. Maya had many accomplishments in the 17 years recorded in I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. One of Maya Angelou's accomplishments in her 17 years in the story I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings is when she secured a job as a conductorette.

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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.

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514 Words | 3 Pages

Maya Angelou was a strong African-American women who made an influential impact on the Civil Rights Movement, in bother her actions, and her literature. Her life experiences and courage helped others, and made her work influential. During Maya’s early life, she experienced many hardships that shaped her into the person many remember her as. Born on April 4, 1928, she only lived in St. Louis, MO for three years before her parents got divorced, and Maya, along with her mother and brother, moved in with her grandparents in Arkansas. At the age of eight, raped by her mother’s boyfriend, Maya learned the power that words possess.

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The Life and Accomplishments of Toni Morrison Toni Morrison was the first African- American women to win the Nobel Prize in 1993. She has considerable literary talents which voiced her passionate concerns about the condition of African- Americans, which as mostly women and stressed the importance of equality. She is known for her epic themes and richly detailed characters that reflected her passionate concerns for African-Americans, particularly women. Toni Morrison was born on February 18, 1931 in Lorain Ohio. Her real name is Chloe Anthony Wofford, she grew up during the Great Depression which has a lot of difficulties and economic hardships which led to her father working three jobs to support the family, which lasted for about seventeen

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His poem Sympathy is just one example of how he felt trapped like a caged bird in his life. Even though the Civil War was over, African Americans still did not have as many privileges and opportunities as most White people had. Most of Dunbar’s writing showed his perspective of life and the struggles that came with it. Maya Angelou was born in 1928 and suffered a hard childhood that later on affected her writing. When she was eight years old, Maya was sexually abused and raped by her mother’s boyfriend.

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First and foremost, Maya's father, Big Bailey Johnson, had treated maya with ignorance and carelessness. In the beginning of the autobiography Maya's self-esteem was very low because she hated the way she was turned into "a too-big negro girl, with nappy hair" as she envisioned herself having long blond hair and light blue eyes (2). When she first

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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 Angelou, an African American civil rights activist and poet whose main focus is on the oppression faced by African Americans in their early life. She uses these past experiences and turn them into words of wisdom. Her early life had a difficult and traumatic toll on her causing her pain and fear, and based on these feelings she wrote multiple poems to describe how she felt and one of those poems are Still I rise. This poem portrays the theme of discrimination and confidentiality and it focuses on a devoted and courageous black woman living with a positive attitude despite the hardships she faces. Still I rise is about a courageous black woman living in an era where cruel words are used to describe her, hatred and envious words and eyes

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1509 Words | 7 Pages

For a long period in history, women have been oppressed of their voice and identity. Women have always been seen inferior to men. Resulting to difficulty in getting an education and having the capability of doing things men typically do. In Virginia Woolfe’s essay, A Room of One’s Own, she noticed how limited women are, especially when it comes to writing. According to Woolfe’s essay, “a woman must have money and a room of her own” in order to write fiction (4).

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793 Words | 4 Pages

Who is Maya Angelou? Maya Angelou was primarily a very versatile and talented person. This woman of African American origin wrote and published seven autobiographies that were very popular and highly-evaluated in the US. However, she is well-known not only for being an author but also for being an actress, poet, dancer, and screenwriter. And of course we must not forget activism in the field of civil rights conducted by Maya.

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2027 Words | 9 Pages

# The sun shines through his curtains, much to his dismay. He sits up in his bed and sighs. It takes him a moment to open his eyes fully and when he does he sees a small object on his dresser catching the light that slips through his curtains. He walks to the ring and rolls it around his fingers a few times.

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