I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Analysis

I Know Why the C dated Bird Sings summaryI Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is an autobiography written by maya Angelou. She describes to the highest degree her hard purport caged growing up as a shadowy missy from the S forbiddenh. Maya Angelou starts the novel about her action in the age of three with her four-year-old brother Bailey. They are turned over the sustentation of their agnate grandmother in Stamps. She describes how the two children were sent away afterwardsward they parents divorce, travelling by train across the Southwestern and cling to their tag To whom It May Concern, c/o Mrs Henderson. Both kids are looking this resembling rejection and solelyton of self-worth. Im existence sent away because Im no lovable. Angelou generalizes the children situations as follows Years posterior I detect that the United States had been crossed thousands of multiplication by stimulate corrosive children traveling al wholeness to their newly affluent parents in northerl y cities, or dispirited to grandmothers in Southern t lets when the urban North reneged on its economic promises. (Caged Bird, 4). Smith states that Maya opens with a primal childhood scene that brings into focus the nature of the imprisoning environment from which the self leave seek escape. The black girl child is pin down within the cage of her own diminished self-image about which interlock the bars of natural and amicable forces. (Interpretation, 6)Her grandmothers strain is the center of life in the Negro community of the town, being the pick-up and drop-off point for like pickers in picking season. Her grandmother Henderson is presented not merely as the of import role in center of her family, but as the leader of the black community in Stamps, strong and religious. McMurry argues that from Mayas eyes the customers in her grandmothers store were trapped in cotton fields, no amount of hope and spiel to attain them out. Her uncle Willie is caged must have been tired of being crippled, as pris unmatchedrs tire of penitentiary bars and the guilty tire of blame. Her grandmother rises each morning with ken of a caged animal (Interpretation, 27).Maya and her brother Baily were very close during their childhood and nearly of their adolescence. Maya in her story writes, During these years in Stamps, I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare. He was my first clean-living love (Caged Bird, 11). Maya writes that But it was Shakespeare who said, When in disgrace with fortune and mens eyes. It was a state with which I matte myself most familiar. I pacified myself about his whiteness by saying that after wholly he had been dead so long that it couldnt matter to any genius any more. She overly enjoys the works of many prominent black authors, which her mammary gland, or grandmother, approves more of. Although youthful Maya likes Shakespeare, and is fine with the fact that he is white, her Momma wouldnt want to know that Maya enjoys a white man s work. Maya feels that she again is caged and supportt express her thoughts and feeling about Shakespeare with grandmother.Angelou rec whollys how Momma used to make them bathe and wash constantly, even in coolness water in winter while. She used to insist on them being venerating and clean, which most people were, except for the powhitetrash children that came into the town. Those that came to the store were often very rude, but infantile Maya and her family are not allowed to say any thing, because they are black. Angelou describes her Momma she is gangly, big, and strong, and leads in the hymns at church every Sunday. She is old-fashioned, though, as she teaches the children to dress as she was to behave as a child, and teaches them to act according to outdated racial codes of behavior. hum Neubauer comments in Angelous sexual congressship with her grandmother states that Momma be make loves a sort of superwoman of capacious proportions with ten feet tall with eight-foot arms and comes to the helpless childs rescue. In this alternate vision, Angelou switches to ideate to suggest the depth of the childs humiliation and the residue of pain even after her two bad teeth have been pulled. Fantasy, finally, is used to demonstrate the undiminished power of the character of Momma.The recession hit the community and the big difference mingled with the white and black communities of Stamps is noted white people have fold of clothes and can impart to be charitable and spend excessively much, and still they have enough for themselves. In the black community, people can hardly afford to give anything away, so when they do, it is much appreciated. Even though Momma has land and money, even she doesnt spend money like the white people do, budgeting carefully and never wasting anything. Even Momma makes all of the clothes for herself and the children, and only buys Uncle Willie expensive, ready-made clothes and shoes. The first hits Stamps, and leads to wag es being cut and difficulty making ends meet. That in like manner means that they cant afford to shop at the store, and Momma has to figure out how to keep the store running and still make money. She allows the townspeople to trade the relief food that they get for credit at the store, and is able to keep things sack there. The holy black community of Stamps Smith argues, itself caged in the social documentaryity of racial subordination and impotence (Modern Critics, 133)Christmas comes, and Maya and Bailey get presents from their parents, who they hadnt heard of since they were shipped off to Stamps. Maya and Baileys begetter comes to Stamps the side by side(p) year, to see his children neither of them were warned that he was coming, and it is hard for them to face their father in the flesh and give up the fantasies they had about their absent father. He is tall and holdome, and more proper and wealthy than the people in Stamps. Maya is happy that he is there, but then think s that if people see her and her father together, their dissimilarity in looks will make people think she is not his daughter. When they finally do meet their mother, she is very beautiful and charming, and Maya and Bailey are no longer flyaway or sad at being taken away from Stamps. canonise Louis is the important turning point in Mayas life. She received the mothers love and care that she missed all the years in Stamps. Maya doesnt have friends and only Bailey is the only one she can share her secret.Maya writes Saint Louis was a foreign country. In my mind I only stayed in St. Louis a few weeks and I carried the same shield that I used in Stamps I didnt come to stay. (Caged Bird, 58). In Saint Louis, mothers boyfriend, Mr. Friedman enraptured Maya at age of eight and she hospitalized. Maya describes that she looked at Mr. Freeman as a father figure. He was the only real man that was a part of her life. Being at a young age she thought that Mr. Freeman just loved and cared for her, just like any little girl would. But it went farther Mr. Freeman last forces her to have sex, and threatens her not to tell anybody. Ultimately, Maya was convinced that by her telling everyone about Mr. Freeman raping her, however condemning him and lying about the other meters he molested her, she caused his death. Thinking that now every time she lies, someone will die, Maya decides to shield others by not speaking to anyone except Bailey. I had discovered that to achieve perfect personal silence all I had to do was to attach myself leechlike to sound. I began to listen to everything. I probably hoped that after I heard all the sounds the piece would be quiet just about me (Caged Bird , 87). The lack of sound in Mayas life due to the assault and lies she said under oath had incur the most important thing to her. Her life now became the sound of everyone else, burying the sound she believes can cancel out her own voice. Mayas writing is simple and she is very honest. Be rtolino states that Angelous description of her molestation and rape is probably the most valuable part of her remarkable book. Angelou tells the story honestly, without sensationalism, all the same with enough palpable detail and enough insight so we, the readers, tycoon to understand. (Blooms Note, 56)After these difficulties, Maya and her brother went at Stamps. Smith argues that Mayas psychological and emotional bleakness find a mirror in Stamps social devastation. Stamps gives her back the familiarity and gage of well-known cage. She climbs back in happily, losing herself in her silent world, surrendering herself to her own worthlessness. (Modern fine Views, 9). Mrs Bertha Flowers played an important role in her life. Mrs. Flowers allowed Maya to come out of her depression and learned about many different things. Mrs. Flower helped Maya to come out of depression, she says to her Now no one is going to make you talk-possibly no one can. But bear in mind, language is a mans way of communicating with his fellow man and it is language alone which separates him from the lower animal (Caged Bird, ). Mrs. Flowers, likewise introduces Maya to reading books, she learns that she must be biased of ignorance, but understanding of the illiteracy, and also Mrs. Flowers offered her to cookies and tea. Smith argues Mrs Flower opens the door to the caged birds silence with the key of acceptance. For the first time Maya is accepted as an individual quite an than as a relation to someone else I was liked, and what a difference it made. I was respected not as Mrs. Andersons grandchild or Baileys sister but just being oxeye daisy Johnson (Caged bird, 98). Such unqualified acceptance allows her to experience the incipient power of her own self-worth. (Modern Critical Views, 9).Angelou describes again the inequality between whites and blacks and looked them in cage. Equal upbringing opportunities are also lacking, and the intellectual capacities of blacks are assumed s everely peculiar(a) the schools provide an academic curriculum for whites and an athletic one for blacks. The white kids were going to have a chance to become Galileo and Edisonand the (black) boys (the girls werent even in on it) would try to be Jesse Owenses and Joe Louises, writes Angelou (Caged Bird, 151). Using both irony and straightforward description, Angelou confronts racial discrimination and gender bias, and tries to sensitize readers to these issues. Her voice come stronger and emotional It was awful to be Negro and have no adjudge over my life. It was brutal to be young and already accomplished to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against my intensity with no chance of defense. We should all be dead. (Caged Bird, 153)At the graduation ceremony, during which the evoke expectation of the young graduates and their families and friends are exploded casually by the speech of an oblivious and insensitive white speaker, the young girl comes to know already the d esperation of impotence (Modern Critical, 10)It was awful to be Negro and have no control over my life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to it quietly and listens to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense. We should all be dead. I thought I should like to see us all dead, one on top of the other. (Caged bird, 153)Angelou using her memories to show how hard was the life of black society she was caged in black community. During a Gradation Party Maya gets a toothache and goes to see a white doctor. The doctor refuses to put his hands in a black girls mouth saying My policy is Id rather stick my hand in a dogs mouth than in a niggers (Caged Bird, 160). ..Maya continues her story in 1941 where her mother, Vivian marries Clidell and they move to San Francisco. Maya and Baily again went to live with Vivian Baxter. Maya construeed to George uppercase High School and the age fourteen received scholarship to attend to California Labor School, where she took evening classes in a drama and dance. In 1943 when Maya was 15 years old she spent a summer with her father at a trailer park in Los Angeles. Maya accompanies her father to a small Mexican town where he proceeds to get simply drunk, leaving her with responsibility of getting them back to Los Angeles. For the first time, Maya finds herself totally in control for her fate. She never had driven a car but her courage she did. And although the drive culminates in accidents, she triumphs.Unable to get along with her father and his live-in girlfriend she ran away and lived for 6 weeks in junkyard that was the residence of a community of stateless children. Angelou was impressed by this nonjudgmental and self-sufficient conclave of young transients and she felt that her experience with them served as a kind of initiation into the human race. Recalling this group in Caged Bird Angelou wroteAfter hunting down unbroken bottles and change them with a white girl from Missouri, a Mexican g irl from Los Angeles, and a Black girl from Oklahoma, I was never again to sense myself so solidly outside the pale of the human race. The lack of criticism attest by our ad hoc community influenced me, and set a tone of valuation account for my life (215).This moment succeeded by a month spend wreck car provide her with knowledge of self-determination and a confirmation of her self-worth. With this optimistic knowledge and power, while is she was in high school she decide to work and applied for a position as a conductor in streetcars.Stamps acquiescence and cage is left far behind in are Maya assumes control over her own social destiny and engaged in the struggle with lifes forces. Braxton argues that another positive identity experience occurs in the world of work Marguerite is determine to become a conductor on the San Francisco streetcars, even though no black have been hired previously. She visits the commercialize Street Railway Office with the frequency of a person on s alary until she is hired, breaking the color barrier previously imposed against blacks and achieving a degree of independence (Modern Critical, 228. )In her story, Maya concludes, The black female is assaulted in her cutting year by those common forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power. (Caged Bird, 231) She has broken out the rusted bars of her social cage. (page 11)Maya become increasingly concerned about her body, which to her seemed unfeminine and underdeveloped. Though her mother move to informed her otherwise, Angelou feared that she was physically abnormal and began to wonder if she could be lesbian. Wanting to call herself of her sexual identity, Angelou invited a male classmate to have sex with her one time. The incident resulted in a pregnancy and have a bodge boy. It is the born of the baby the main turn point in Mayas life and her triumph.Smith statesMaya Ange lous autobiography comes to a sense of an ending the black American girl child has succeed in freeing herself from the natural and social bars imprisoning her in the cage of her diminished self-image by assuming control of her life and fully acceptation her black womanhood. (Modern critic, 12)