“I know why the caged bird sings” by Maya Angelou

Thesis Statement

Angelou's argues about the compatibility of black females in American Society.

Introduction

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” is the first of five volumes of Maya Angelou's autobiography, which cover the years from the early 1930's, up until about 1970. Out of the five, it is probably the most popular and critically acclaimed volume, dealing with Angelou's childhood, up to her coming-of-age at sixteen. All of her volumes center around the themes of family, self-discovery, and motherhood, though in terms of writing style and plot each of them is different. Maya's mother Vivian Baxter and her son Guy, born at the end of this book, are furthermore central figures throughout Angelou's life story (Angelou, pp: 23).

Discussion

As an autobiography, Caged Bird adheres to numerous conventions of the genre; it features first-person narration, is organized chronologically, and is focused on the development of the self. However, Angelou furthermore values many stylistic elements more common to fiction works, like dialogue, fully fleshed-out characters, and close description of sensory details from her past. The work could furthermore be considered of as combining fictional techniques with autobiography since the story is told by an adult, who is recreating a childlike voice and point of view for the novel. The many vivid descriptions and recreations of Angelou's early life in this capacity also plead the question of how Angelou could manage to remember such tiny details from her childhood well enough to reconstruct them in the book (Bloom, pp:116).

Angelou composed this autobiography for several reasons; one was as a reminder not to give in throughout the tests of increasing up. Angelou has said, "somebody desires to notify young people, listen, I did this and I did that. You may meet numerous beatings, but you should not be defeated". Caged Bird is sometimes considered essential reading for young students, and is on numerous needed reading lists; although, the book has furthermore proved controversial, because of its honest depictions of sexuality and Angelou's discussion of being raped as a child. This book was written in the early 1970's, at a time when autobiographies of women, and particularly very dark women, were a way of asserting the significance of women's inhabits, and analyzing matters of particular importance to women. Angelou's book, although it is intended for a broad audience, is furthermore concerned with conveying the difficulties of being black and a woman in America. Angelou addresses these issues in such a way that they apply to all her readers for understanding, and furthermore talk to the specific segment of her audience that she represent (Braxton, pp:81).

As juvenile young children, Maya and Bailey labor with the agony of having been turned down and left behind by their parents. Maya furthermore finds herself tormented by the conviction that she is an unattractive progeny who will not ever assess up to genteel, white girls. She does not seem identical to other very dark children. One Easter Sunday, Maya is incapable to complete ...