I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is an autobiography of the life of Maya Angelou. The book begins with the divorce of her parents, and Maya and her brother Bailey moving from St. Louis to Stamps, Arkansas, where their grandmother lives. Maya deals with sudden, unexpected separation from stability and security, sexual abuse, rape, racism, poverty, death, abandonment, solitude, and uncertainty all before the age of sixteen. After leaving the safety and comfort of life with her grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas, Maya and her older brother Bailey travel to St. Louis to live with their mother Vivian. After almost a year of not adjusting to city life, Maya becomes the victim of a savage rape, by her mother’s boyfriend. It leaves her so traumatized that she stops speaking and slowly recovers after returning to Stamps to the love and care of Momma. After proudly graduating from junior high school and entering their teenage years, Maya and Bailey again go to live with their mother. She moves to San Francisco, where Maya feels more alone and insecure than ever. She has to come to terms with the feelings and issues of being a teenager, getting a job, finishing school, watching her brother pull away to find f
. . .
She just continued to live her life the way she wanted to. This is one of the many racist situations that Maya faces in the novel. ” Symbolism “Just my breath, carrying my words out, might poison people and they’d curl up and die like the black fat slugs that only pretended. Youth and social approval allied themselves with me and we trammeled memories of slights and insults. This is also one of the many situations she was able to rise above. It allowed me to put myself in her shoes. She deals with sexual abuse, rape, racism, poverty, death, abandonment, solitude and uncertainty, all before she was sixteen. Both novels were written by people who were discriminated against, and who grew up with the least amount of possessions. The only thing I could do was to stop talking to people other than Bailey…When I refused to be the child they knew and accepted me to be, I was called impudent and my muteness sullenness…The bareness of Stamps was exactly what I wanted, without will or consciousness.
Maya was inspired to write her autobiography after meeting novelist James Baldwin, editor Robert Loomis, and cartoonist Jules Feiffer.
Approximate Word count =
1531
Approximate Pages =
6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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