I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Comparative Essay

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, an autobiographical novel written by Maya Angelou, was published in the year 1969. The novel follows Maya as a young girl facing challenges such as racism and sexism following the civil rights movement. While reading the book, the reader is introduced to events in history such as the Great Depression and World War II.

Maya Angelou was a civil rights activist, author, and poet. She wrote many books and poems that conveyed the vivid experiences in her life. Maya Angelou’s works are well known and she is an eminent writer. One poem in particular that is well known is “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” written in 1969. In this work she described racial inequality, and the lack of freedom African Americans experienced in the 1930’s and 40’s. Maya Angelou uses many Rhetorical strategies and literary devices to describe the lack of racial freedom in the world at this time.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce, discuss, and analyze the novel I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. Specifically it will discuss the themes of racism and segregation, and how these strong themes are woven throughout this moving autobiography. Maya Angelou recounts the story of her early life, including the racism and segregation she experiences throughout her formative years. With wit, sincerity, and remarkable talent, Angelou portrays racism as a product of ignorance and prejudice. However, she finds the strength to rise above this crippling condition.

In Maya Angelou’s I Know the Caged Bird Sings (1969), the reader is absorbed into a personal account of her life starting from her childhood to young adulthood during the 1930s and 1940s. From a young age, Maya witnessed the first-hand effects of racism in the South for blacks growing up alongside her brother, Bailey. In the novel, Angelou faces racial discrimination and displacement inside and outside her own community that act as metaphorical cages barring her from the freedom to be her true self.

Maya finally tells Bailey what happened to her and who did it, he tells the

The novelist, educator, producer, actress, filmmaker, dancer, poet, and civil rights activist Maya Angelou has culturally affected the literature world in many ways. Her talents didn’t spontaneously arise but a lamentable childhood molded them. However, Angelou has enhanced her life as an adult by climbing to the top of the New York Times best-sellers list with her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

In the autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the main character Marguerite Johnson, is influenced by a preponderance of characters including Bailey Jr. , Momma Henderson, and Mrs. Bertha Flowers. One of the primary influences is her older brother, Bailey Jr.. Momma, or Annie Henderson, the parental grandmother, also plays an important role for Maya. Additionally, Mrs. Flowers, the black aristocrat of Stamps, saves Maya during an especially difficult time. All in all, these three characters act as important role models in the development of Marguerite through her juvenile years.

People suggest to Angelou that she write a book about her life experiences. Angelou wrote a memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in 1969. The memoir was about her childhood and young adult’s years. The memoir covered, times growing up in the Great Depression, while living in the segregated South. Her home stay with her grand-parents and relationship she had with her loving brother Bailey. Angelou also touch upon about being raped by her mother’s boyfriend, which desperately traumatized her to the point where she was mute for several years of her life. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings shaded light to racism and oppressing and problems the African American family faced in 40’s. Angelou didn’t have get the chance to director the film

Maya Angelou is a literary genius, receiving both a Pulitzer Prize nomination and Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor bestowed to U.S. civilians. Additionally, Angelou made history as an award winning actress, dancer, screenwriter, editor, poet, author and civil rights leader. In spite of a difficult childhood, she transcended her impoverished Arkansas roots and went on to pen more than 36 books, with 30 bestsellers, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is arguably the most famous. Perhaps her greatest work is not the books she authored, but the millions of lives she touched. Through her commitment to civil rights, she worked closely with Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and served on two presidential committees. Undoubtedly,

In her poem, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Maya Angelou-- The bird sings because it wants her freedom. I think the caged bird also sings because she is bored or probable she needs distraction because she does not have nothing to do alone. I guess the bird is also calling someone because she might need something. Also i think the bird is ignored by the people that have the bird captured. I think this paragraph has to do with “The Long Walk Home” because Odessa can not do nothing by her choice. I also think she can't do nothing by herself in the movie. I think people should know this because it's sad that in the past people had to do that for white people. For me i think the poem and the movie are at least alike. Odessa cannot do stuff in the house because the owners might get mad at her but the wife stands up for the black people for me that was a good choice because black people are people they are not toys.

In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou’s journey is a powerful example of what can happen when someone pursues their American Dream. When Maya is a young child living in Stamps, Arkansas, she has no control over her life and also faces crippling racism and a lack of self-confidence. Stamps has nothing to offer her, but when Maya moves to San Francisco a whole new world of opportunities opens up to her. Maya remarks, “To me, a thirteen-year-old Black girl, stalled by the South and Southern Black life style, the city was a state of beauty and a state of freedom” (Angelou 212). Despite Maya Angelou’s rough childhood and her struggles with racism and self-confidence, she uses her American freedom to fight for and secure

In Maya Angelou’s poem, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” she compares the caged bird to a free bird. One stanza in the poem says “ A free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the current ends and dips his wing in the orange sun rays and dares to claim the sky.” Basically saying that the free bird can do what he pleases. The caged bird cannot. This stanza will show you.

For Maya Angelou in ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ dreams and aspirations were quite different from other children. " Wouldn’t they be surprised when one day I woke out of my black ugly dream, and my real hair, which was long and blonde, would take the place of the kinky mass that Momma wouldn’t let me straighten? My light-blue eyes were going to hypnotize them…” She embodied the idea that blonde hair was perfection and that she was an ugly, fat, black girl trapped in an endless nightmare. At the age of three, Maya and her four-year-old brother were turned over to the care of their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas.

An autobiography is an account of a person’s life written by that specific person, and a memoir is an account or biography written from personal or general knowledge, or special sources. There is a fine line between autobiographies and memoirs; to be specific an autobiography is generally written by the main character, and it is very detailed and focused on facts such as chronology, events, and any other information that the author feels as though necessary. A memoir, while similar to an autobiography, is a narrative that is focused on certain events in the author’s lifetime, not the whole picture. Memoirs are less factual and formal than an autobiography. Categorizing a piece of literature into one of these categories can be a strenuous process because they are very similar. I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, already categorized by the author as a memoir is exactly where it belongs. While this book has attributes of both a memoir and an autobiography, it is more like a memoir as it focuses on one section of Angelou’s life, ranging from early childhood to early adulthood. While reading this book, the reader must ask him or herself, what is the role of truth in this memoir? This question brings up the point of independent truth. Memoirs, while not entirely factual, have their own independent truths. In other words, the role of truth in literature does not matter because literature is its own separate entity in its own world, used for pleasure and

'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,' by Maya Angelou is one of the best coming-of-age stories that I've ever read. While it wasn't necessarily nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, it's still one of the most influential novels for black girls all around the world. Although the actual novel isn't the biggest it is full of very graphic, detailed, powerful emotions. Angelou beautifully captured her childhood and struggles while growing up in this novel. This story has been read in many classrooms all around America because of how powerful and inspirational it is. 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,' covers many topics that girls of color may struggle with such as self-image, self-importance, and flat-out racism.