The women in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and The Color Purple have been raped and forced to live life harshly as African Americans during the time when civil rights for many people of the United States of America was still very much a dream. The novel, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou, is an autobiography of Maya Angelou's life. In the novel, she was raped by her mother's boyfriend at the age of eight and had to move constantly from her grandmother's place in the rural part of Stamps, Arkansas to her mother's place in the city of St. Louis. Not only was it awful for Maya Angelou to not have a permanent place to stay, but it was more horrible in that she was alienated from her own black community. The novel, The Color Purple, by Alice Walker, is about the life of an African American woman named Celie. She was raped by her stepfather at the age of fourteen and was forced to marry a violent husband who treated her terribly. Although she was uneducated at the beginning of the book, with the help of her sister, Nettie, she becomes informed about the world and learns to appreciate and love herself. The two novels, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and The Color Purple depict the life of African American women as victims in the world and even in their own community. These two novels are similar because of the themes of racism and self-esteem. Maya and Celie grew up in a time in which race and appearance were very important and which made the difference in how you were treated. In these two books, because they were of African American descendants, they were treated cruelly and without any respect. This led to the individuals feeling no sense of worth for themselves and thought of suicide to solve their problems. The third reason why the novels are similar is because of Maya's and Celie's view of men. They both share a common view of men due to their childhood nightmare. They were both raped by their "fatherly figure". For exa...