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Maya Angelou Research Paper

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Recommended: Critical review of maya angelou

Hadeel Momani
Mrs. Henslee
English III
26 March, 2018
Title
Marguerite Johnson, who later changed her name to Maya Angelou, was born on April 4th, 1928 in St. Louis Missouri. She was an only daughter to Vivian and Bailey Johnson (Braxton,1). Starting when she was just three years old, Maya found her self moving back and forth across the country. When she was three, Angelou and her brother, Bailey, were sent to live with their maternal grandma, Annie Henderson (Morris, 58). At seven years old, her and her brother returned to live with their mother in St.Louis. There, Angelou was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. After the man was kicked to death, Angelou felt as though it was her fault because she lied at his trial. As a result, she didn’t …show more content…

Her use of metaphor and simile… is especially engaging” (Loos, 35). In Auburn University’s Southern Humanities Review, Sidonie Ann Smith notes that the beginning of the work is significant in showing Angelou’s search for self-actualization. In another review of the book, Clarence Nero says, “In taking a closer look at I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings we find community, education, and language working as a ‘discursive trifecta’ to bring dignity, hope, and pride to a black community fragmented by Diaspora” (Nero, 237). Angelou’s Grandma Henderson demonstrates the importance of community through her small store. When anyone in the neighborhood was going through a hard time, she used to support them anyway she could(Nero, 239).{insert transition sentence here} Suzette A. Hanke provides her thoughts on why Angelou faced hardships, “In Angelou’s Caged Bird, negritude and femininity make contradictory, irreconcilable demands on Rite’s sense of personal identity.” She also states that Angelou’s unfortunate experience with rape signifies “adult emotional betrayal.” …show more content…

“CRITICAL READINGS: Maya Angelou’s Caged Bird as Trauma Narrative.” Critical Insights: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Jan.2010, pp.243-260. EBSCOhost,search,ebscohost.com

Koontz T. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Masterplots II: African American Literature, Revised Edition, December 2008, pp.1-4. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com

Loos, Pamela. “CRITICAL CONTEXTS: The Critical Reception of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” Critical Insights: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Jan. 2010, pp.35-51. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com

Mickle, Mildred R. “THE BOOK and AUTHOR: on I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” Critical Insights: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Salem Press, Jan. 2010, pp.1-8. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com

Morris, Bernard E. Maya Angelou. New York: Marshall Cavendish Corporation, 2002. Print. Nero, Clarence. “CRITICAL READINGS: A Discursive Trifecta: Community, Education, and Language in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” Critical Insights: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings; Jan. 2010, pp.237-242. EBSCOhost,search.ebscohost.com

Sickels, Amy. “CRITICAL CONTEXTS: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: African American Literary Tradition and the Civil Rights Era,” Critical Insights: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Jan.2010, pp. 17-34.

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The world is no stranger to oppression. Madness driven from an inferiority complex based on racial stigma. Prohibition of freedom being yet another way to inflate this expanding social divide between the oppressors and the oppressed, between white and black. Within the poem I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, this concept of social division due to the desire of freedom and the desire to restrict the freedom of others is explored through the implementation of a variety of literary devices: symbolism, metaphors, sudden tone shifts, and a constant underlying allegory. Driven by her own experiences being raised during a time period where segregation and racism were acceptable behavior amongst the masses, Angelou illustrates this problematic normalization of discrimination through the juxtaposition of a free bird to a caged bird to convey the theme of oppression and the hope of freedom brought on by such.

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