I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Introduction

Through gritty detail, hyperbole, and winsome humor, Maya Angelou describes the coming of age of the Maya character, an examination of her child-self as Marguerite "Maya" Johnson, the focus of the autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Maya learns the basics of southern womanhood from her grandmother. The womanly side of life requires rolling out biscuit circles, attending Sunday services, and dressing as a lady for an eighth-grade graduation ceremony at Toussaint L'Ouverture Grammar School. During household chores Maya regrets one of the tests of domesticity—having to "iron seven stiff starched shirts and not leave a cat's face anywhere". When the family situation shifts, Maya lives in Saint Louis with the strutting, amoral Vivian "Bibbi" Baxter Bailey, Maya's mother, and under the supervision of Grandmother Baxter, a female political force for whom there is no analogy in the South. The differences in the matriarchal line pose new thoughts about womanhood that Maya takes time to ponder (Kehl & Angelou, 2002).

The cyclical banning of this novel from school and public libraries stems from the brutality of chapter 12, Maya's rape by Bibbi's lover, Mr. Freeman. Delicately, Maya recalls, "The act of rape on an eight-year-old body is a matter of the needle giving because the camel can't". Angelou accounts for the muting of Maya during a rapid retribution against the pedophile, who dies near a slaughterhouse of the pummeling of Bibbi's three brothers. The family accepts the child's self-silencing as "a post-rape, post-hospital affliction".

Analysis of the Novel

The onset of womanhood increases internal conflict. Adolescence arouses both rebellion and vulnerability in Maya, whose "need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind". While living in Los Angeles and San Francisco, she observes her mother's self-empowerment ...