I Know Why the Caged Bird Sing
"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou, the book tells about a growing up black girl in the American south in the 1930s and 1940s. Maya struggles with her youth. Her life in Stamps, Arkansas with her religious grandmother and St. Louis, Missouri, where her worldly and glamorous mother resides. At the age of three Maya and her four-year old brother are turned over to the care of their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas, southern life in Stamps, Arkansas was filled with humiliation, violation, and displacement. These actions were exemplified for blacks by the fear of the three K, racial separation of the town, and the many incidents in belittling blacks.The main theme of the novel is Maya's struggle to survive and grow up in a complicated and harsh world. Maya is extremely young when she and her brother are sent from their parents' house to live with their grandmother and uncle in Stamps. Life in Stamps is not easy. Momma is a religious fundamentalist and harsh disciplinarian who does not know how to show her love to the children. There is also a great deal of prejudice against blacks in Stamps. Maya's life becomes even more of a struggle when she goes to live with her mother in California. The beautiful Vivian makes Maya
Maya knows that to be black and female is to be faced with violence and violation. She had difficulties in coping with these sometimes confusing differences. There is a lot struggle this women endured early in her life but she graduated high school which was a big accomplishment for a women in those days not to mention a black women in those days. Unable to handle her emotionally distraught child, Vivian sends Maya back to Stamps to live with Momma. When Maya's uncles know about the rape, they beat him to death. Black peoples' resistance to racism takes many forms in the book. It also demonstrates the desperate nature of the black community's hope for vindication through the athletic triumph of one man. She writes this to express that she, too, knows why the caged bird sings and anyone can overcome if they merely open their wings and fly. The act brings back to Maya thoughts of her frightening past. She is my idol because she has overcome many obstacles throughout her life and to remain a strong woman is beyond explanation. You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. Maya notes at the end of book that the towering of a hard-fought struggle. Her bravest act of defiance happens when she becomes the first black streetcar conductor in San Francisco. None of them ever capitulates to racist indignities.
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Acceptance Essays
