Caged Bird Displacement

In Maya Angelou’s autobiography “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” Angelou uses the repetitions and binaries on pages 58 and 59 in order to point out the effect displacement has had on her life. On these pages, Angelou writes about moving from familiar Stamps to sunny California with her father. Her father then tells Maya and her brother that they would be going to live with their mother in St. Louis. Angelou continues on to write about her and her brother Bailey’s shock and fear. In “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, Angelou uses the theme of displacement to convey the impact it had on her life and future.
Maya’s displacement from her parents caused her to depersonalize her mother; therefore, resulting in a long lasting barrier between herself

Towards the end of the passage, the effect of being moved from everything Maya has known is illustrated when she says “For all I knew, we were bring driven to Hell and our father was the delivering devil”(59). This passage is quite aggressive when it compares her father and St. Louis to the devil and hell. However, looking deeper into the wording and context of the passage; it shows the effect moving had on Maya. Earlier on in the novel it shows that Maya has a deep connection to God. Thus, the words “devil” and “Hell” have a more dramatic impact than what one may have originally believed. This passage shows how strongly Maya feels about moving away from her comfort zone. Later on in the passage, Maya used very emotional adjectives to not only describe her mother, but also to show the relationship between the two of them. “To describe my mother would to write about a hurricane in its perfect power”(59). The most important words to point out are “hurricane” and “power”. From these words one can see what they mean to Maya - her possible destruction. Maya believes that her mother has the ability to make her feel forgotten and unloved like she did long ago. Which is why Maya compares her to a hurricane. Hurricanes have the power to tear towns, families, and people apart. One must also see that Maya thinks her pain would have never occured if she stayed safe and protected in Stamps. Although, the passage later shows a new side to what has already been stated. Maya not only expresses how she feels about St. Louis but how new it is. “St. Louis was a new kind of hot and a new kind of dirty”(59). The repetition of “new” in the sentence causes one to question that Maya may not be scared of relationships that could end in pain but perhaps the unknown. Maya is overwhelmed and confused about why her mother would just send her away only to take her back.