Caged Bird Sings Thesis

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I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings is a novel by Maya Angelou and it talks about Mayas childhood and her growing up through racism, rape, and homosexuality. People may learn by reading, but reading I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings is not the right way. The novel has a strong use of racism, rape, and some homosexuality that is put on Maya Angelou.
Racism is most witnessed when Maya is living in Stamps, Arkansas. Racism in the novel is most strong in the first half of the novel, then in the other half. "Annie, tell Willie he better lay low tonight. A crazy nigger messed with a white lady today. Some of the boys'll be coming over here later."(Angelou 17). When blacks were committed of a crime back then, it was a whole lot worse than when a white man committed the same crime. The "boys" in the text evidence are presumed to be members of the Ku Klux Klan. …show more content…

Getting raped as a child can cause the child to have depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, or become suicidal. "I had to stop talking"(Angelou 87) and "My old guilt came back to me like a much-missed friend. I wondered if Mr.Freeman's name would be mentioned, or if I would be expected to say something about the situation myself" (Angelou 201). Maya believed that if she did not talk to anybody else, except Bailey, nobody else would die. Children who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder usually avoid other people, places, or thoughts that make them insecure and that could remind them of memories of their

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