Soaring to New Heights in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelou's I Know Why Caged Bird Sings illustrates how an innocent and naive girl growing up in the midst of the Great Depression overcomes life's many obstacles and becomes the powerful and influential woman she is today. Maya is a world renowned author, teacher, speaker, actress, and mother. Through this autobiographical piece, Maya's use of figurative language and allusion compounds her thoughts, as she depicts how one can supersede the expected barriers and soar to new heights.. In chapters 14 and 15 of the book, Maya's usage of figurative language conveys her struggle to speak. Through a tragic rape by her mother's boyfriend, Maya is scared for life and is led to believe that the very sound of her voice is lethal, consequently, she conceives a six year silence that, not knowing then, could limit her opportunities and convert her fate. After returning from St. Louis and entering Stamps, Maya entered her six year "cocoon." This haven extricated her metamorphic spurt into reality and womanhood. As with every cocoon, there is always a time when one must leave and bravely enter the unknown world behind the shell. Mrs. Flowers encouraged Maya to emerge and assisted her in finding her strongest defense and force, her love of literature, to open this barrier and allow Maya to end the silence. By doing this, it enhanced Maya's courage and willingness to conquer other barriers and fortresses. Maya's love of literature expanded and opened her horizons. One of Maya's favorite pieces of literature is The Tale of Two Cities. She enjoyed it because it was a tale of her life, although in different cities, now being St. Louis and Stamps, it seemed as if she was reading her own autobiography, which is, in fact, rather portentous and foreshadowing. With the first line of the book being, "it was the best of times and the worst of times...", it paints a portrait of Maya's childhood. Maya, even though she struggled through adolescence, was the best times of her life. It was her learning period. It was her no turning back period. She felt as if, even though the outer exterior of the environment was corrupt, why must her life be? It didn't have to be. Maya emerged into being a "dirty and inedible biscuit." Maya is becoming a very strong and independent woman. Most biscuits, when old, are moldy and have a very hard outer covering with a soft inside. Maya has, again, built herself a fortress of protection, yet she is able to express herself freely. With this hard, outer covering, it protects her from insults and segregation. This also demonstrates her incredible lack of self- esteem. During the Depression, food was hard to come by, most would consume food even if appeared to be inedible. She compares herself to a needed, yet unwanted, source, making her very insecure and unable to express her feelings. Like most other stale foods, biscuits crumble easily. If handled or touched the wrong way, she would, indeed, crumble and leave bits of her soul behind. Figurative language continues throughout the chapter establishing Maya's mentor, Mrs. Flowers. She is the one person whom targeted Maya's weaknesses and powerful points, hence making her the significant woman she is today. She was a beautiful black woman whom was so frail, she would "snag like a plum" if touched. Mrs. Flowers was put on a pedestal. She was an educated woman, whom, by this statement, seems to have been very beautiful, much like a porcelain doll. She was a roll model for Maya. Maya looked up to her in every way, for beauty, intelligence, and her "womanly like" stature. She was like the "women in English novels who walked the moors." Mrs. Flowers was much like a white person to Maya. She seemed fictional, like it was too good to be true. A beautiful woman strolling through open wasteland is how Maya saw her. She was peaceful, yet powerful, and beautiful, yet independent. This being what Maya wanted and hoped for in life... her own independence, intelligence, and beauty. Mrs. Flowers and Mamma expected May a to be "womanly like," not knowing what happened in St. Louis. Maya was afraid that they would find out what happened to her. Mrs. Flowers built her to be a woman, without Maya even acknowledging it. She did it patiently, therefore succeeding and constructing a path for Maya on her way to becoming a woman. In conclusion, Maya sets an example, just as Mrs. Flowers did for her, and tells the world that anyone can succeed if they try. Maya overcame the wrath of a childhood rape, segregation, prostitution, hate, and love. 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.
Detective Maya Vasquez is the protagonist of the show. She comes from a lower end of a middle class economic background and is a native of Lake Arthur. Three ways to describe her are: intrepid, a straight-shooter, and persistent. Maya is also Latina which plays an important role in the way she is treated by side characters. She did not attend college, but did attend and complete her training at a police academy. Maya’s character is similar to the theme in Shondaland of having a multi-dimensional career-driven female lead. However, unlike Scandal’s Olivia Pope and How to Get Away With Murder’s Annalise Keating, Maya Vasquez is not world-renowned or even well revered within her own town. Instead she struggles to be taken seriously in her field
This literary critique was found on the Bryant Library database. It talks about how well Maya conveys her message to her readers as well as portraying vivid scenes in her reader’s minds’. Maya’s sense of story and her passionate desire to overcome obstacles and strive for greatness and self-appreciation is what makes Maya an outlier. Living in America, Angelou believed that African American as a whole must find emotional, intellectual, and spiritual sustenance through reverting back to their “home” of Africa. According to Maya, “Home” was the best place to capture a sense of family, past, and tradition. When it comes to Maya’s works of literature, her novels seems to be more critically acclaimed then her poetry. With that being said, Angelou pursues harsh social and political issues involving African American in her poems. Some of these themes are the struggle for civil rights in America and Africa, the feminist movement, Maya’s relationship with her son, and her awareness of the difficulties of living in America's struggling classes. Nevertheless, in all of Maya’s works of literature she is able to “harness the power of the word” through an extraordinary understanding of the language and events she uses and went through. Reading this critique made me have a better understanding of the process Maya went through in order to illustrate her life to her readers. It was not just sitting down with a pen and paper and just writing thoughts down. It was really, Maya being able to perfect something that she c...
Born on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri she was named Marguerite Johnson nicknamed “Maya” by her brother; her surname is an adaptation of that of her first husband. Because of the breakup of her parents' marriage, she and her brother lived with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. She was raped by her mother's boyfriend when she was eight and for the next five years
Maya knows that to be black and female is to be faced with violence and violation. This is brought into focus when she goes to live with her mother and is raped by her mother’s boyfriend. When Maya is faced with this catastrophe, tells who did this to her, and the man is killed, she believes her voice killed him. She withdraws into herself and vows never to speak again. Her mother feeling that she has done everything in her power to make Maya talk, but can cannot reach her, sends Maya and her brother back to Stamps. After Maya returns to Stamps and with the help of her Teacher-Ms. Flowers she begins to speak again.
After Bailey’s departure, Maya felt that “it was going to be impossible to stay where she was, but leaving held no attraction for her either.'; (Chap 34, pg 264, line 2)
Have you ever imagined what life would be like if we could eliminate human problems? This is the question that arises when the issue of human cloning or human cloning of the organs is brought up. Cloning is the process where organisms, cells, or microorganisms are copied to produce an almost identical genotype. In other words, the cloning process involves taking a cell from the tissue of a live animal or human, inserting all or some of the genes from that cell into an embryo, which is then placed in the womb of a living creature. There, this embryo is hoped to reproduce into a child, and be born as a clone of the living being from which the cell is taken. Cloning is also called "somatic cell nuclear transfer," it is the transfer of a nucleus of a somatic cell to an egg that has had its nucleus removed. Cloning is beneficial to humanity, and it can help solve organ limitations, cure diseases, and take a giant step toward immortality (Anderson, 60).
Dolly, woolly, innocent, and sweet, strongly contrasts with the severity of the issues that she has raised. Ever since the news surfaced that Dr. Ian Wilmut had succeeded in cloning a sheep, people around the world have been participating in a frenzied debate over the morality of cloning animals, and more importantly human beings. The cloning of animals and humans could help the world in unprecedented ways, but could also give rise to unforeseen problems. It raises moral, ethical, and regulatory issues which must be considered during with the formation of cloning legislation. While I believe animal cloning is useful on a restricted level, I feel that human cloning is unnecessary and I advocate its full prohibition.
BYU Studies 38.4 (1999): 43-64. Print. The. Sharer, Robert. A. The Ancient Maya.
Ever since the successful birth of Dolly on July 5, 1996, the scientific community as well as the public have been engulfed in the idea of reproductive cloning, its benefits, and its potential threats. This well-publicized event was a giant steppingstone in understanding and using the techniques of gene cloning and reproductive cloning. By using a technique known as Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer, scientists at the Roslin Institute removed the nucleus from an oocyte (unfertilized egg), and then fused this newly enucleated cell with a donor cell (with complete nucleus). This new embryo was then implanted into the womb of a surrogate mother ewe. In total, out of 277 fused cells, 29 successfully developed into embryos, while only one of these resulted in a successful live birth (a total success rate of 0.4%) (Wong, 202). Dolly was the first living mammal to be cloned by this fast and accurate process of somatic cell nuclear transfer, but was by no means the first animal to be cloned. The first...
The illegal alien debate has raged on for several decades; however in recent years citizens have become more aware of the crisis. Illegal immigration is one of the most controversial political issues of today's society. Illegal aliens and their immigration to the U.S. is a problem that needs to be addressed. It is unfair to Americans and to the country from where they immigrated from. Whether they (illegal aliens) take jobs or put a strain on Americans social service programs, the constant invasion of illegal aliens has promoted disrespect for the law and also limits our ability to control immigration.
Reading a book once in a while helps us from being ignorant from the outside world. Readers many times dare to compare and discuss about the books that they have read. This works when we read two master pieces of literature that could be very similar and in the same time very different stories. I had the great fortune of reading the screenplay of “To Kill a Mockingbird” as well as the part of the memoir “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”. After reading these two great pieces of literature I dare to compare the main characters, Scout from “To Kill a Mockingbird” and Maria from “I know why the caged bird sings”. The main intentions of this two books are to teach lesson to their readers whether they could be children or adults.
At first Maya is bitter about being abandoned by her parents, however she slowly adapts to living with her grandmother along with her brother Bailey. As she grows accustomed to placing Annie as her mother and referring to her as “momma”, she develops trust and affection that places Annie in a hierarchy in Maya’s eyes. In this sense, her concept of motherhood is one that inspires trust based on strength of character and ability to offer comfort and assurance. Regarding her mother Vivian, Maya showcases trust when she asks her about the changes in her body and whether she could be a lesbian based on these changes or a lack thereof. Vivian further evokes Maya’s trust when she allows her to cut school when Maya does not feel like attending classes after she started working as a bus conductor.
In their conversations together, Iago seems to pity Roderigo, claiming to “have professed me thy friend,” yet he advises Roderigo into a position which would only help him further drive his plot forward, simultaneously leading Roderigo to believe that he is helping him (I.iii.379). When Iago is alone, he is less likely to brag about these ideas and more likely to run the audience through his thought process in a stream-of-consciousness. Through these monologues, the audience is able to see the more manipulative side of Iago that he disguises when around Othello. Iago carefully manipulates each character to the position that is most advantageous to him, yet still asks himself, “And what’s he, then, that says I play the villain,/When this advice is free I give and honest” (II.iii.356-57). Almost seeming to be proud of himself, Iago views his planning as nothing more than a game, “[his] sport and profit” (I.iii.429). Iago has no moral qualms about exploiting others’ weaknesses, a situation which ultimately gives him the upper hand against Othello when controlling
Literature is a form of art with many facets, many obvious and others subtle. The surface of literature can be composed of many elements such as genre, form, rhythm, tone, diction, sentence structure, etc. Time periods, authors’ personal style and type of work all determine what elements are used in the literature. The deeper more subtle side of literature is the use of symbolism, imagery and the significance of the work. In most works of literature, parallels can be drawn between the author’s personality and current life’s events through the subject matter, the characters, and the use of specific literary techniques. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s use of literary techniques in the first two stanzas of The Lover: A Ballad, are consistent throughout the six stanza ballad identifying and refuting the ways in which women were defined by literature of the 18th century era.
First, cloning has a long history dating back thousands of years, which has allowed the process of cloning to evolve to more complex organisms. Cloning was first experimented with different plant offspring (“Cloning” n.p.). The cloning process of plants in the past was very simple and only required parts of the plant such as roots, stems, and leaves to be cut and planted, which would grow into an exact copy of the initial plant (“Cloning” n.p.). In the 1950s, scientists were able to successfully clone frogs in a more complex manner by transferring the nucleus from a tadpole cell to a frog egg that had already had its nucleus (“Cloning” n.p.). Scientists later discovered that their cloning procedure was a success when the frog that grew from the egg experimented on had the same genetic makeup as the tadpole that donated a nucleus from one of its cells (“Cloning” n.p.). Dolly the sheep is the product of the first successful cloning of a mammal (“Cloning” n.p.). “In 1997 Scottish scientist Ian Wilmut and his colleagues announced the birth of a clone of an adult mammal” (“Cloning” n.p.). Dolly was created from a cell of a breast gland from an adult sheep was put in an embryo and placed inside a sheep able to give birth (“Cloning” n.p.). Dolly was born looking identical to the shee...