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Symbolism as a literary tool essay
Critical analysis i know why the caged bird sings
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Maya Angelou’s excerpt from “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” will imaginatively take a reader away from their deskbound position to envisioning the stage of a play ornamented with fashioned rabbits, buttercups, and daisies, hearing children as they actively perfect their performance, and stimulate the readers’ appetite with the expressive words she uses to describe sweet whiffs of cinnamon and chocolate from the food samples being prepared. From Angelou’s portrayal of the play an individual will be capable of picturing white rabbits crafted from construction paper and cotton balls modelling puffy tails, together with, yellow and pink card board cut outs resembling buttercups and daisies decking a stage. The person who reads this excerpt
Rhetorical Analysis: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings In her memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelo commemorates and admires strong independent black women and strives to become a well-educated woman herself. Through the use of visual imagery, Angelou describes Mrs. Flowers as a refined black woman to convey to the audience a feeling of pride and recognition for all sophisticated black women and a sense of empathy for Maya. Maya compares Mrs. Flowers to the “women in English novels” who had the luxury to sit “in front of roaring fireplaces” and drink “tea incessantly from silver trays” (93). The visual description of the “fireplace” and “tea” demonstrates to the reader the value that white women have in this society.
Maya Angelou published her novel I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in the late 1960s to shed light on her personal experiences as a girl growing up in the segregated South. She writes unfiltered depictions of rape and sexual abuse, along with topics such as racism and teenage pregnancy. Her novel, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings became censored in America in 2002 due to these topics. Regardless of this novel being censored, it holds significant value in the lessons it teaches.
As far as living more worthy, I believe they are absolutely further needy. This is not regarding observing the playing field - this is almost selfless giving to comfort life and adjust some of the consequences of hopeless hardship. Singer begins by exclaiming into question how valuable a human life is and how at ease everyone can commend that a human life would be appreciated in the millions. Singer also emphasizes that we are be capable to conclude that all humans are shaped equal, at least to the level of refuting that a difference of sex, nationality, background and place of home change the worth of a human living.
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.
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.
She shows us that despite the injustices that may occur, there will always be victory for those who truly deserve it. Maya Angelou's perspective as a young African American girl is described in Chapter 19 of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, titled Champion of the World. Her community is gathered to support Joe Louis, the former champion, in a boxing match that determines if he'll continue being champion or not. As the story progresses in her grandmother's and uncle’s store, the tone transforms from hopeful to defeated, to triumphant.
Eleanor Rigby and the Blackbird The songs “Blackbird” and “Eleanor Rigby” written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, performed by The Beatles, are inspirational, poetic and profound. The songs convey the opposite meanings of connectedness and isolation. Throughout the songs, we can all come to identify with the blackbird, and in some aspects, the pastor and the Eleanor as well. What first seems like two simple, short songs about a blackbird and a woman becomes a commentary on human interaction.
People throughout their lives are constantly discovering who they are and who they want to grow into. The same statement accurately describes Maya Johnson, a strong woman who wrote about her life in her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. As a little girl, her mother’s ex-boyfriend raped and she had to rediscover herself whilst navigating through the grim veil of trauma - a process that burdened her for many years. Throughout her life, she encountered many different people, some good, others bad, but they each helped her eventually discover her identity. ‘Identity’ is how people define themselves as a human being, and, therefore, nobody else can dictate it.
Harry Tran English 11 Ms. Lesson 3/21/2017 The Price of Freedom Freedom is one of the human rights, which guarantee by God when he created human equally, each has responsibility for their liberty. Therefore, it makes a lot of arguments around the world, especially in America between the 1800s and 1900s, the dark era of slavery that the slaves have no human rights and treated as properties. At the same time, the 20th century is an evolution of art, illustrious pieces born, some of them considered as typical literary masterpieces. This is the impeccable combination of expressing their feelings through art and poems is a prominent place which included the I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou in 1969 in and Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “ Sympathy” in 1899.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by: Maya Angelou I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was written in 1969 by the renowned poet, Maya Angelou. Although a poet, Maya Angelou wrote this novel not as a poem, but as an autobiography. In the autobiography, there are many ways that the two children, Maya and Bailey, feel emotional exile in their lives.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: A Metaphorical Criticism Maya Angelou is an acclaimed American poet, public speaker, activist, author and educator who is most famous for her roles as a spokesperson for black Americans and women. In her poem, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” written in 1969, Angelou describes her struggles with racism, which she was exposed to and dealt with since childhood.
(Angelou, 219) I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, an autobiography of Maya, perfectly describes how Maya feels trapped and caged throughout her childhood and life. Maya also wrote a poem named “Caged Bird”, which clearly speaks to the racism of her time. Maya felt caged throughout her life, and as the poem states, she longed for freedom- freedom from the horrible memory of rape and freedom from the racism surrounding her. The setting of this autobiography is in Stamps, Arkansas, an extremely racist small town. Trapped and caged in a small town, Maya realizes the racism of her time, a reality that no one should have to deal with.
An Unjust System Freedom does not feel ‘free’ to all people, as many have struggled throughout the centuries to reach the treasured outcome of freedom that Americans so often speak pridefully of. An excerpt from Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing?, “Caged Bird” is a stand-alone poem written by Maya Angelou in 1983. In the poem “Caged Bird,” Maya Angelou displays the drastic differences between the “free” whites and the “caged” blacks by emphasizing the endless freedom that Caucasians historically have had, while African Americans have had to live in the midst of fear. The African American voice is evident in this poem through the “caged bird” as the speaker powerfully demonstrates her thoughts being opposed to a “free” bird, which is presumably Caucasian Americans.
(Davis) “Caged Bird” is the poem which lead to Angelou’s autobiography “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” 1970, (Davis) and in 1979 was made into a major motion picture. (IMDB) This poem addresses the feelings of isolation and segregation which allows the reader to travel the path of Angelou during the social injustice