I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Essay

1212 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Freedom versus oppression in maya angelou's autobiography

People are born into the world. They learn how to walk, speak, and think in order to make their own decisions. Because they are knowledgeable about these things, it is only right if troubles and hardships start to interfere in their life and become obstacles in their path whether they are personal, political, or psychological. In the autobiography, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, the main character, (herself) Marguerite, goes through psychologically damaging events, and experiences discrimination because of the color of her skin, but in the end she endures all those hardships, learns how to be independent, and proud of who she is. Along her journey, there are three specific figures who stood out in the book and in Marguerite’s …show more content…

Annie Henderson gave Marguerite and her brother Bailey all the love, care, and support that their parents could not give them. She served as their mother figure hence the reason why they started addressing her as “Momma” instead of grandmother. Marguerite’s biological mother was never there for her. In fact, it could have been better if they had never reunited because when she lived with her mother, she was raped. This was an event in Marguerite’s life that will never go away. It will always linger around her as a horrible memory that she wants to forget. It makes it worse because the man who raped her, was her mother’s boyfriend. The person who took her back and gave her time to heal was Momma. Marguerite learns to be proud of who she is and how to truly love herself because of Momma. In the beginning, she wishes that she would “[wake] out of [her] black ugly dream” (Angelou 2) to find herself with blue eyes and long, blond hair. Society was telling her that in order to be considered beautiful, you had to be white; however, Momma helps Marguerite realize that being a person of color is honorable and that finding beauty inside is more

Show More
Related

  • Commentary on the Poem: The Lais of Marie de France

    882 Words  | 2 Pages

    Some would argue that my story is incomparable to that of the young woman’s due to the significantly different circumstances and the different time periods. Nonetheless, it is not the story that is being compared; it is the underlying emotion and specific experiences that made such a wonderfully deep connection. Marie’s intention when writing this tale was for her reader to learn something, whether it is about themselves or the story. Though the outcomes seemingly differ as the three characters--Milun, the women, and their son--are reunited and live happily ever after, my story is not over. Through my life experience and emotions of love, motherhood, and separation, I have learned that patience and time heal all.

    Read More

  • I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: Movie and Book

    1050 Words  | 3 Pages

    The novel, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", by Maya Angelou is the first series of five autobiographical novels. This novel tells about her life in rural Stamps, Arkansas with her religious grandmother and St. Louis, Missouri, where her worldly and glamorous mother resides. At the age of three Maya and her four-year old brother, Bailey, are turned over to the care of their paternal grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. Southern life in Stamps, Arkansas was filled with humiliation, violation, and displacement. These actions were exemplified for blacks by the fear of the Ku Klux Klan, racial separation of the town, and the many incidents in belittling blacks.

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Pride In I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

    1523 Words  | 4 Pages

    Humans consistently make comparisons between themselves and the next person, over fashion, cars, jobs, the nation they belong to, religion, and the land they own. All of these are material things, yet their egos divide them into groups who feel superior to the other in order to pride themselves. Pride can be beneficial, but it has more detrimental effects than positive ones, as pride and ego make people feel more important to others, spark rivalries between groups such as how nationalism influences war and hatred, and caused white people to treat the black community as an inferior people such as in Maya Angelou’s memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. In this deeply frustrating yet inspiring text we follow Maya Angelou’s emotional roller coaster as she gains more confidence and pride in both herself and her race despite extensive setbacks such as being raped at eight years old, and she explains her

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Antoinette's I Was Bridesmaid When My Mother Married Mr. Mason

    170 Words  | 1 Pages

    Annette: This is Antoinette’s mother who provides a negative perspective on her daughter’s life. She always needed to be liked by everyone and this personality trait rubbed off on Antoinette, which reflected on her in a negative way later in the novel. “I was bridesmaid when my mother married Mr. Mason in Spanish Town...their eyes slid away from my hating face” (36). Neglected from her family and being less favored by her mother to her brother, Antoinette lives a life without love and peace, but with a lack of respect and with a husband who finds pleasure in asserting his male dominant power over his wife. Unfortunately, Antoinette has got many of her mother’s undesirable characteristics and possibly could have inherited the mental illness

    Read More

  • I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

    1054 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout her life, Marguerite experiences many different situations and people that all contribute to the way she grows up and the person she becomes. Despite some of her tragic circumstances, she learns a lot growing up, mainly because of the African-American women in her life who teach her all different life lessons. In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Marguerite gets to absorb teachings from her mother (Vivian), Mrs. Bertha Flowers, and her grandmother (Momma). These women allow Marguerite to learn and grow as an African-American female, all while paving her own way.

    Read More

  • Everyday Use Analysis Essay

    487 Words  | 1 Pages

    The story is being told from Mama’s point of view. The story gains a look at how children leave home and come back with different values and morals that the parents didn’t teach.

    Read More

  • I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Poem

    555 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the famous poem “I know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” by Maya Angelou--An extraordinary woman who lived through abuse and racial discrimination. She also suffered from sexual assault from a close family member and do to that traumatizing moment she stopped talking, for five years. Maya Angelou in this poem uses metaphors to capture all the hard times she went through.And how she and her other peers have barriers between blacks and whites and how she and her peers are limited to their freedom. And how the only way for African-Americans to earn respect was for them to have a voice and stand up for their rights.”That's Why The Caged Bird Sings.” In Richard Pearce’s screenplay,”The Long Walk Home,” Odessa represents Maya Angelou caged bird, while Miriam is

    Read More

  • Summary Of My Own By Aimee Bender

    645 Words  | 2 Pages

    Mona’s mother is characterized by her idealistic, whimsical nature, and her “warm[th];” while Mona looks to her mother for advice, her mother suggests she “decorate,” and “have a party.” Regardless of these qualities, Mona’s mother encourages her to strive for independence, stating the she is “too old” to live with her parents, quite literally forcing her out of the comfort of her own

    Read More

  • Caged Bird Sings Thesis

    426 Words  | 1 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Suffering and Surviving in James Baldwin's Sonny's Blues

    1464 Words  | 3 Pages

    Mama, as a member of an older generation, represents the suffering that has always been a part of this world. She spent her life coexisting with the struggle in some approximation to harmony. Mama knew the futility of trying to escape the pain inherent in living, she knew about "the darkness outside," but she challenged herself to survive proudly despite it all (419). Mama took on the pain in her family in order to strengthen herself as a support for those who could not cope with their own grief. Allowing her husband to cry for his dead brother gave her a strength and purpose that would have been hard to attain outside her family sphere. She was a poor black woman in Harlem, yet she was able to give her husband permission for weakness, a gift that he feared to ask for in others. She gave him the right to a secret, personal bitterness toward the white man that he could not show to anyone else. She allowed him to survive. She marveled at his strength, and acknowledged her part in it, "But if he hadn't had...

    Read More

  • Sula

    1280 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...mother was a prostitute who was incapable of raising a child. When Helene got notice to come to Louisiana because her grandmother was sick “She did not want to go, but she could not ignore the silent plea of the woman who had rescued her.”(19). Helene did not want to go because she would once again have face her past in the racist streets of Louisiana. For her trip Helene sewed herself an elegant dress hoping that it would ease some tension of the fact that she was black. It was almost as if Helene was trying to hide the fact that she was black.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings By Maya Angelou

    778 Words  | 2 Pages

    Maya Angelou’s excerpt from her book “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” reveals the challenges facing a young black girl in the south. The prologue of the book tells of a young Angelou in church trying to recite a poem she has forgotten. She describes the dress her grandmother has made her and imagines a day where she wakes up out of her black nightmare. Angelou was raised in a time where segregation and racism were prevalent in society. She uses repetition, diction, and themes to explore the struggle of a black girl while growing up. Angelou produces a feeling of compassion and poignancy within the reader by revealing racial stereotypes, appearance-related insecurities, and negative connotations associated with being a black girl. By doing this she forces the

    Read More

  • The Struggles in Maya Angelou's Life

    924 Words  | 2 Pages

    The early 1930’s a time where segregation was still an issue in the United States it was especially hard for a young African American girl who is trying to grow and become an independent woman. At this time, many young girls like Maya Angelou grew up wishing they were a white woman with blond hair and blue eyes. That was just the start of Angelou's problems though. In the autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou goes into great depth about her tragic childhood, from moving around to different houses, and running away and having a child at the age of 16. This shows how Maya overcame many struggles as a young girl.

    Read More

  • I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

    568 Words  | 2 Pages

    I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a memoir written by Maya Angelou. Published by Random House in 1969, this autobiography is 289 pages long. Maya Angelou’s first book focuses on her childhood growing up as a black women in the southern United States. The book starts off when Maya’s parents leave her and her brother Bailey with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. It then follows her through her teen years and end when Maya is sixteen years old and living in San Francisco with her mother. The novel tells of growing up from a young Maya’s point of view, where racial prejudice is a recurring theme.

    Read More

  • I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Poem Analysis

    1247 Words  | 3 Pages

    Freedom has been a monumental treasure and withal the universal identity of the American people. A huge crowd rose in defiance to the British government following their thirst of freedom. A huge crowd of immigrants migrated from their beloved homeland to America because of the freedom which it has always promised. Freedom is an organ of each American citizen that without its presence, their bodies would have been deteriorated. In an abstract view, freedom flows along every city and land within the United States, and it is reflected by any sort of art. Regarding some of the artworks that reflect freedom, Sympathy by Dunbar and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou are two typical examples. The poem Sympathy was written by the African

    Read More

More about I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Essay

Open Document