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Struggle in Maya Angelou's life
Brief history of maya angelou
Struggle in Maya Angelou's life
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The novel I Know why the Caged Bird Sings written by Maya Angelou is an autobiographical story about her life and the struggles she faced up to age 16. Angelou’s struggles with trying to find her true identity, coming to terms with being raped, and dealing with racism growing up in the south, which influences in her novel by forcing her to open to the audience and share her struggles with the world. Maya Angelou born as Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 4, 1928. She grew up in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas (Maya Angelou Biography). Maya just three years old when her mother sent her to live with her grandma, and 13 when they were reunited (Maya Angelou Biography).Although her grandmother helped her develop pride and self-confidence, Angelou was devastated by being raped at the age of eight by her mother's boyfriend while on a visit to St. Louis (Maya Angelou Biography) .After she testified against the man, several of her uncles beat him to death (Maya Angelou Biography). Believing that she had caused the man's death by speaking his name, Angelou refused to speak for approximately five years (Maya Angelou Biography).She attended public schools in Arkansas and later California (Maya Angelou …show more content…
Maya Angelou died due to respiratory failure (Johnson).While she was still living she well aware of her diagnoses, but ignored it (Johnson).She suffered from the diagnoses for up to ten years (Johnson). Maya died in her sleep on May 28, 2014 at her home in North Carolina (Leopold) .In total She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, and several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning more than fifty years (Leopold). Due to her wishes, she was cremated and had her ashes scattered (findagrave).Angelou was loved by many because she touched so many people with her amazing
Maya Angelou was born April 4, 1928 as Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis. She was raised in segregated rural Arkansas. She came from a broken home. Angelou was raped at eight, and was an unwed mother at 16 years old (Williams 1). In spite of her tragic childhood, she still managed to become one of the greatest black poets of the twentieth century (Williams 1).
Angelou, M. (1969). I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. New York: Random House Publishing Group .
Maya Angelou was an amazing lady, she was born April 4th 1928 in St. Louis Missouri she was many things when she was younger. She started off as an actress, to a screen writer, to a dancer, and finally to a poet. She was great at the things she did she loved doing it as well. Her parents are Bailey Johnson (dad) and Vivian Johnson (mom). They divorced when Maya was 3 years old she had it rough and went through a hard time when that had happened she was very sad and depressed. She also has 1 older sibling named bailey Johnson. Maya and bailey got sent to live with their fathers mother Anne Henderson in Stamps Arkansas.
Maya Angelou was one of the most famous African American poets of all time. She spent fifty years writing poetry, autobiographies and was active in the civil rights movement. Born on April 4, 1928 Maya Angelou was born Margarite Johnson in St Louis. Maya became mute when she was a child at age seven due to her mother’s boyfriend who raped her. Maya was married three times and had one son at age 16. She worked under several presidents and worked with martin Luther king Jr. and his family. Maya was also an actress and appeared on Broadway she is known for her famous poem I know why the cage bird sings it received honors, two NAACP image awards in 2005 and 2009. Maya received several awards such as national medal of arts,
Dr. Maya Angelou is an influential poet, author and historian. Becoming one of the greatest poets of our time was not an easy task for Dr. Angelou she had to overcome a few obstacles starting with attending a segregated school, and facing racial discrimination. Being an African American attending Lafayette Training School, a school that sat on a dirt hill with no lawn, tennis courts, and fence limiting the boarding farmers surrounding the school educators expected Angelou and her fellow classmates to not do great things in life. According to a speech given at her 1940 graduation they were “maids and farmers, handymen and washerwomen” (p.84) and anything higher that they aspired to was farcical and presumptuous. Causing her to feel angry but
After their divorce, her mother started dating, and Angelou was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. The man was arrested, then released and after she told her uncles, they killed him. For many years after Maya remained silent. The only person that she talked to was her older brother. A few years later, Maya and her brother, moved to Stamps, AK to live with her paternal grandmother. (Angelou, The Poetry Foundation) Her mother was not present in her life which left a strain on her childhood and young adulthood. While living in Arkansas, Angelou experienced discrimination and prejudice. She then moved to California to attend the California Labor School. When she was sixteen, she gave birth to her son. Once born, she worked many jobs to support her and her son. Her numerous job positions represents her determination to succeed in life no matter her
young, her parents divorced, leaving her brother and herself with her grandma in Stamps, Arkansas. Since Angelou was an African American during times of segregation, she received many racial remarks. When she was seven, she went to visit her mother for a few days. During that time, her mother's boyfriend raped her. Out of anger, her uncle killed the boyfriend.
Later in the fifty’s Maya Angelou appeared in many productions. Her career began to take off. In the sixty’s she lived in Egypt and then Ghana. When she moved back to the United States she wrote a memoir about her life experiences. It was titled, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She was the first African American to have a non-fiction best seller.
She was born Marguerite Johnson on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri. As a child, most of her time was spent with her brother, Bailey Johnson, and they were raised by their paternal grandmother, Momma, in Stamps, Arkansas. Her brother was the giver of her name “Maya”. At first he called her “My” due to his shortening for “My sister”, then her nickname got to be “Maya” because he happened to be reading a book about Maya Indians, and it stuck with her from then on. Living in the south, Maya Angelou faced all the brutality and racial prejudice that occurred there. Being with her grandmother, she “learned to take pride in herself and to appreciate the strong bonds that held the African-American community in the small-town, segregated South” (Watkins 15). At the young age of seven, Angelou went to visit her mother in Chicago, where she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend, and being too ashamed to speak she remained silent for 5 years. At age thirteen she began to speak to others again and she moved to San Francisco with her brother back to where they rejoined their mother. Living in Francisco, she attended Mission High School, but later on she dropped out of school to become San Francisco’s first African American female cable car conductor. Maya Angelou decided to go back to school, but in her senior year where she was sixteen and pregnant, she dropped out of school again and gave birth to a son by the name of Clyde Bailey “Guy” Johnson (Maya Angelou). As a teenager, Maya Angelou was in love with the arts. Due to her talent, she won a scholarship to study dance and drama at San Francisco’s Labor School. In the fifties, Angelou “pursued a career in dance and theater, eventually touring twenty-two countries in the cast of Porgy and Bess” (Watkins 15). All of her past talents aided her and helped expand her writing to autobiographies and poetry. Her first publication was I Know
By the end of the first book, Maya ends up being a high school graduate, so she has the mindset as most teens in high school (possibly more mature because she has a child). This puts her in the position as many of her readers. This goes without saying---at that age no one completely knows who he/she is, but it is possible to learn about oneself. Sexual abuse and Racism clouded the natural healthy development of Angelou. People go through things in their lives that to them seems like the worst thing imaginable. It is reassuring to know that people can still find themselves despite their circumstances, as Angelou shows to her
Maya Angelou was told many messages throughout her life. She was told she wasn’t good enough, she was told she couldn’t become anything she wanted to become, and she was told she didn’t belong. The reason behind most negative things she was told in her life had nothing to do with who she was as a person on the inside. They had nothing to do with what she had previously done, previously accomplished, where she lived, or her age. The only thing holding her back, according to most of society when she was growing up, was the fact that she was black and because of that, she didn’t deserve everything white people did. Maya was determined to not be beaten down by any of these things that others said against her. Maya Angelou chose to be a warrior
At a young age, Maya Angelou’s parents got divorced. After the divorce was final Maya and her older brother, Bailey, were sent away to live with their grandmother. Angelou’s not so perfect life started when she was a young girl. “When she was about three years old, their parents divorced and the children were sent to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. Angelou claims that her grandmother, whom she called ‘momma, had a deep-brooding love that hung over everything she touched’” (Burt). In the first chapter of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the book starts with Angelou talking about her parent's divorce. “Our parents decided to put an end to their calamitous marriage, and father shipped us home to his mothers” (Angelou 5). After living with her grandmother, or as Maya begins to call her “momma”, for 4 years Maya Angelou and her brother Bailey are sent back to St. Louis Missouri. In St Louis they lived with her mother and her boyfriend Mr.Freeman. Mr.Freeman makes a huge impact on young Maya’s life. When she was only 8-years-old he rapes her, after being raped Angelou becomes mute and will ...
Dr. Angelou was born on April 4th, 1928, in St. Louis Missouri. All though born in Missouri, Dr Angelou was raised in Stamps, Arkansas. Dr. Angelou’s birth name was Marguerite Annie Johnson. Maya’s parents divorced and at age three she and her brother Bailey were sent to live with their grandmother. Maya lived with grandmother, Annie Henderson until the age of thirteen (Angelou, 2013). She then left Arkansas to be home with her mother Vivian Baxter in California (Angelou, 2013). Maya was scared and felt as if she was not beautiful enough to be the daughter of Vivian Baxter. Vivian would call Maya beautiful something Maya was never called before. Living with Vivian, Maya learned that she could be a giver simply by bringing a smile to another person’s face (Angelou, 2013). In Arkansas Maya experienced racism ...
It was said that her brother was small in size but made up for it in his huge confidence and personality. He had a stuttering problem so he would call her “MyMy’ (short for my sister). While reading a book about the Maya Indians, he decided to lengthen her nickname by calling her Maya. Her uncle played the role of her father and made sure she was protected at all cost. At the age of seven, Angelou went to visit her mother in Chicago where she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. The experience was so traumatic it changed her life for the next five
Dr. Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Annie Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 4, 1928, and died in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on May 24, 2014, at the age of eighty-six (Lupton 6). Maya Angelou was an African American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist who faced numerous obstacles in her iconic lifetime. She faced the inevitable racial oppression of being an African American woman in a racist society. “Double jeopardy theory suggests that black women may face additional challenges because their race is devalued” (Buchanan 2008).