The inequality and disparity of the racist society is seen in these events, as well as in the dentist’s incident and the insult of the “powhitetrash girls”. Maya Angelou in her work tried to show the struggles the Black men, women and children faced and how they survived. Such experiences are not told only to show the history of the black people, but also to find how Angelou’s inner world was created and how she evolved. There are social, psychological and geographic occasions that helped Maya in the process of personal development.
In 1941, when Maya is thirteen, she and Bailey move to Oakland and later San Francisco to live with their mother, whom they had not seen in six years. By this time, Vivian Baxter has married Daddy Clidell, a gambler
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Friendly but never gushing, cool but not frigid or distant, distinguished without the awful stiffness”(Angelou 212)
Later, Maya again demonstrates the strong person in which she had become when she drives her drunken father out of Mexico. She knows that something terrible could happen if she does not take control. As Sidonie Ann Smith states “for the first time, Maya finds herself in control of her fate. Such total control contrasts vividly to her earlier recognition in Stamps that she as a Negro had no control over her fate. Here she is alone with that fate. And although the drive culminates in an accident, she triumphs” (Smith 368)
In the last part of the autobiography she came back to San Francisco, she decided to look for a job. She wanted to work as a streetcar driver, but the path to gain this job was not easy. The strong personality of Maya made her fight and thanks to her perseverance she finally got it. At first Maya’s mother rejected her proposal saying: “They don’t accept colored people on the streetcars” (Angelou 265). But Maya did not give up and went several times to the office to ask for the job; Her mind also shouted: “I WOULD HAVE THE JOB. I WOULD BE A CONDUCTORETTE AND SLING A FULL MONEY CHANGER FROM MY BELT. I WOULD”