Maya Angelou Courage

She raises Bailey and Maya as if they are he own kids. Through the novel Maya never had a father figure, but she had Momma. An independent black woman. Momma owned her own store, took care of her crippled son and took care of her two grandchildren. She is a religious and a strong woman. Growing up Maya always questioned why Momma did some of the things the way she did, for instance one time some white children called Momma names and mistreated her, but she did not budge. Maya thought, “Who owned the land they lived on?... If there was any justice in the world, God should strike them dumb at once!” (23), Maya is thinking about retaliation, but does not realize that there can be serious consequences. Kinsolver exemplifies with this quote that society separates black and white and gives power to only the whites. Maya thinks otherwise, in that they should be equal and this is her first step of breaking societal expectations. As Maya matures she learns how to be more womanly and independent from

When Maya returns to Stamps after spending time with her mother, she endures the shame of having been sexually abused by Mr. Freeman, her mother’s boyfriend. Maya stops speaking to everyone except her brother, Bailey. Her real mother accepts her silence at first as trauma, but she later gets angry at Maya’s “disrespectful behavior”. Much to Maya’s relief, she is sent back to live with Momma in Stamps along with her

Maya's statement reflects her reliance on Bailey as a source of emotional stability and guidance. However, when Bailey leaves, Maya's emotional well-being becomes fragile, and she starts to question her identity, utterly different from her old self at the beginning of the book. Maya's connection to her brother was so crucial to her sense of self that she felt emotionally displaced and lost when he moved

Maya Angelou is a leader by example, she sets the standard by her actions and the stories she tells teaches the audience a lesson. Majority of her work is to inform us of the past and she wants us to learn from her experiences in life; she is a life teacher. The purpose of this poem was to inform us of the history of our country. The poem is titled “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” and her purpose of writing this is to teach the reader why the caged bird sings. Maya Angelou wants to put the reader in her shoes to get the ultimate experience of racial inequality but instead by taking the role of a caged bird or a free bird.

In “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, Maya Angelou uses her personal experiences growing up as an African American female to present her primary claim that even in trying times there is something to be grateful for. Angelou’s secondary claims are mainly comprised of stories from her upbringing as well as the description of her grandmother’s attitude even though they are living through times of extreme poverty. In Each of the stories she speaks of one circumstance that seems completely unbearable but yet ends with some sort of light at the end of the tunnel. This structure can also be seen in her description of her grandmother’s outlook on life. By formatting her essay in this way, Angelou is able to develop pathos as well as ethos with the audience.

Maya Angela is like a bud who slowly bloomed to become a beautiful flower. In her most famous book’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” she discusses the horrible struggles she went through as a young girl being black, being shy, and being raped. Throughout her life she struggled

Vivian takes Maya to the hospital. Bailey privately urges Maya to name the rapist, assuring her that he would not allow the culprit to kill him. Maya reveals Mr. Freeman's name, the authorities promptly arrest him. Maya thinks of herself as a grown woman, remembering that her nurses told her that she has already experienced the worst that life has to offer.

Maya loves her brother immensely with full admiration and gratitude. She goes as far as to saying she wanted to “live a Christian life just to show God that I was grateful [for having Bailey].” She loves him not only because he was actually attractive, being “small, graceful, and smooth” with “velvet-black skin,” the opposite of her, but he provided the affection she had been lacking form other family members; he was the closest thing she had to a parental figure. Being the “pride of the Henderson/Johnson family,” Bailey received scarce punishments for his rambunctious antics, a factor that came in handy when aiding Maya. Dismayed at her appearance, the elders in Maya’s family would ridicule and undermine her. Seeing the hurt emanate from Maya,

“I discovered that to achieve perfect personal silence all I had to do was to attach myself leechlike to sound I began to listen to everything” She became a state of introversion towards the people around her. In the article “From Darkness to Dawn” it described a girl’s experience with depression it read, “For her depression she underwent 20 electrocution treatments, took medication, and pursued talk therapy.” Some people handle depression their own way and need different outlets. Maya became her own person and started to make observations about her surroundings and the way of life. She did not go to Bailey a lot like she used to which also caused her to feel lost in her decisions.

In the era, Maya grew up in men are considered accomplish and successful than a woman. Often women are homemakers with children based on the typical stereotype of what a woman supposed to be in society. Maya Therefore, Maya questions her sexuality after reading about lesbians because of her lack of interest in affection from men and appearances that isn’t considers a normal girl behavior. Maya had her first consensual intercourse with a classmate to ensure herself that she is normal, which result in her becoming a mother after she graduated high school. In her path of becoming a mother, she became better woman then the own mother because, unlike her mother, Maya raised her son as a single mother regardless of the outcome of her life. Therefore, Maya is also a great example of how much a woman can do even with a child. She never let the outcome of her life stop her from achieving greatness, showing that women don't have to sacrifice to achieve their goals. Maya learns to survive and thrive in a racist dominated society earning respect and title as an African-American and as a

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a timeline of Maya Angelou’s life, starting at the age of three and including sixteen. In the book she talks about her the hardships she faced in life. Maya Angelou grew up in a society that when African Americans were not accepted. Angelou faced tough situations at a young age, suffering abandonment from her family and being raped by her mothers boyfriend Mr. Freedom. No matter what obstacles she faced she did not let that ever stop her from becoming the person she was meant to become, which is the strong, independent black woman.

Maya Angelou describes what her life with her grandmother is like while constantly being discriminated against her race. She then found her father, and he leaves Maya and Bailey off to their mother’s house. There, the mother’s boyfriend rapes Maya. After suffering from psychological shock, Maya then moves back to her grandmother’s. As a teenager Maya gets nervous about her sexual identity and tries to discover it. Through these harsh times, the naïve and softhearted Maya grows to become a strong, independent woman.

“The needs of a society determine its ethics, and in the black American ghettos the hero is that man who is offered only the crumbs from his country 's table but by ingenuity and courage is able to take for himself a Lucullan feast. Hence the janitor who lives in one room but sports a robin 's-egg-blue Cadillac is not laughed at but admired, and the domestic who buys forty-dollar shoes is not criticized but is appreciated. We know that they have put to use their full mental and physical powers. Each single gain feeds into the gains of the body collective” (Angelou 218). Maya believes that blacks are being robbed of their lives and freedom to explore, grow, and succeed. This statement shows that ones with the very little they have will utilize it completely and have that to their advantage, and then they will succeed. Racism and prejudice are large factors that shapes Maya’s autobiography and eventually motivate her to ignore all of the negative influences and build her confidence. There are also many violent events towards blacks that show Maya the severity of prejudice in her society. One day when Maya was at the store a fight was on the radio where a black man and white man were battling in a boxing ring. When the black fighter Louis was getting beaten Maya thought, “It was our people falling. It was another

Maya’s Graduation played a big role in shaping who she became later on in life. Before knowing how the graduation would eventually turn out, everyone was excited, “The children in Stamps’ trembled visibly with anticipation, some adults were excited too, but to be certain the whole young population had come down with gradation epidemic.” Maya was exceptionally ecstatic; she was the youngest and one of the first to be called on stage, “I was going to be lovely, a walking model of all various styles of fine hand sewing and it didn’t worry me that I was the only twelve year old and merely graduating from eighth grade. Her excitement was short lived though, for as the graduation finally started, Maya could tell something was wrong, “Finding my seat

Maya’s reflection that her mother “was competent in providing for us. Even if that meant getting someone else to furnish the provisions”(Chapter 11) that reveals how desire her mother was to afford food and clothes for both of them. By being with Mr. Freeman, the man that lives in the same house with their mother. After the first incident of physical touching with him, she is reassured by his embrace and convinced that he is her “real father”, she is confused that’s when Mr. Freeman takes advantage of this touchingness and rapes her, even though Maya thought the whole thing was “real father’s love”. When Maya’s mother discovers what has happened to her she gets him killed, the traumatic incident that happened to Mr. Freeman made Maya feel guilty for him being dead and her feelings put her in a place of loneliness and in a quiet place. She refuses to speak to anyone but Bailey, and when she feels them growing apart, she goes back to reading books, reflecting that “the long lost children mistaken for waifs, became more real to me than our house, our mother, our school or Mr. Freeman.”(Chapter 11 page 76). A sense of loneliness, came to her mind, this is really bad for a child that is only eight years