Annotated Bibliography: Maya Angelou Angelou, Maya. I know why the caged bird sings. New York: random house, 1970. Print. Maya Angelou's book describes in great detail the events of her forming years and her emotions throughout.
Rhetorical analysis of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings “I was really white and because a cruel fairy stepmother, who was understandably jealous of my beauty, had turned me into a too-big Negro girl, with nappy black hair, broad feet and a space between her teeth that would hold a number-two pencil” (Angelou 19). Maya Angelou was only a little girl when she realized that she was different than all the other little girls; racism had already affected her life significantly. The times she grew up in and the way society changed around her were some of the reasons she wrote the book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. In this book, Angelou talks about how adventures, romance, and adversity changed her through the eyes of her young self.
If we look at the time period Dunbar grew up in, there are parallels to be drawn in terms of the poem and his life. The idea of a caged bird, something meant to fly and be free but held captive is similar to what it would have most definitely felt like to grow up during this time as an African American. In fact, Dunbar himself can be viewed as this caged bird, which explains why he knows the things the bird experiences all too well. It would have been extremely hard, even for someone as talented and intelligent as Dunbar to rise up within a community during this time period if they were African American.
A successful writer turns literature into a poem with rhetorical devices in order to connect with the readers. Maya Angelou lived a life of poverty and hardship but turned it into something beautiful. Some examples of her most famous pieces are "Caged Bird," "Still I Rise" and "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." She uses diction, syntax, and imagery to convey her message of perseverance in overcoming oppression, racism, and finding herself. Maya Angelou employs diction to communicate her emotions and thoughts to her readers.
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.
(Hook). The poem “Sympathy”, by Paul Laurence Dunbar published 1899 which inspired the title to Maya Angelou's autobiography I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. The articulation of this poem derives from such aspects as the use of rhetorical devices, and overall meaning of the piece being strengthened by these interlocked aspects. Driving people to become aware of their situations and fight against the driving forces rather than giving into them.
“Symanthy”, a poem written by Paul Laurence Dunbar in 1899, tells the story of a bird stuck in a cage as it beats its wing on the bars and wails for help. “Caged Bird”, a piece by Maya Angelou in 1983, depicts a free bird, dancing through the wind, and a caged bird, crying for helps with its clipped wings and his binded feet. The caged birds from these poems are very similar, but the caged bird’s call for help from Maya Angelou’s poem is heard and hints that help is in the future for the bird, which makes Angelou’s poem more meaningful than Dubar’s. “Sympathy”, the poem, shows the pain and true reason why the caged bird sings. Dunbar reveals why the caged bird sings when he says,”It is not a carol of joy or glee,/…
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.
The poems "I, Too, Sing America" and "Still I Rise" are similar and different in many ways. Both of these poems are written from the perspective of unprivileged, unequal members of society. Langston Hughes was a famous African American poet who wrote most of his poems about the rights of blacks. Maya Angelou was a famous female African American poet who wrote her poems about the equality of African Americans and women. Both of these poets are similar in the aspect that they are advocates of African American equality, but they are also different in the way that they write.
That is why these poems are about and why they are so similar. Finally, many poems during this time were written about Civil Rights. There were many writers, especially African American authors that wrote about all the horrible things that were going on during this time. There were many more writers like Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou.
Similarly, Maya Angelou wrote a poem about facing adversity. A bird cries out from its place trapped in a cage, and it sings a song that holds out hope that freedom will one day come and let him out of this cage, while also being fearful that the bird has no idea what is to come
In the two poems Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar and Caged Bird by Maya Angelou, gave a comparison between the life of a caged bird and the life of a slave. There are similarities and differences in the two poems. The difference between the two poem is that Sympathy is more aggressive than the poem Caged Bird, and the similarities of the two poems is the theme and imagery. The poem Sympathy the poem
Both poems shed light on the true feelings of African Americans everywhere and show that these people are tired of being treated differently and that these people know that things will change. Hughes’s poem has a laid back approach, almost expecting things to get better on their own. But Angelou’s poem is a bit more attacking. Instead of accepting that things are the way they are and that they’ll get better, Angelou tries to make her oppressors seem less oppressive to her and more scared of her by saying things such as “Do you want to see me broken” and “Does my sexiness offend
The two poems “Sympathy” written by Paul Laurence Dunbar and “Caged Bird” written by Maya Angelou are so similar, yet so different. Both of the poems are very similar because they both share a single underlying theme which is Freedom. Both Dunbar and Angelou wrote their poems about a universal concept that individuals will find at some point in their lifetime. These poems show that when one fights for their rights they will face difficulties, but them having hope will help for them to overcome their pain. The birds in “Sympathy” and “Caged Bird” demonstrate that if they get caught up in a trap the birds are still able to fight for what they want.
The poems in this essay both talk about being a woman. “Phenomenal Woman” by Maya Angelou is about more of a confident woman while “Woman” by Nikki Giovanni is about a woman who wants a man to change for her. The poems though very different, are also similar because they both talk about confidence as a woman. By the end of both poems the narrators both know that they are women who are strong and do not need anyone else 's acceptance but their own. They know their own self worth and that is enough for them.
