Essays on I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings A title often conveys a deeper meaning of the books content. The title of Angelou’s autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, was chosen to relate to a poem written by Paul Laurence Dunbar. The cage is a metaphor for what is holding Maya back. In the metaphor, she is a caged bird who is unable to solve her problems but still sings of hope. Maya is presented with many struggles in…

The best-selling classic, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, has enlightened the world of the hardships of those that have bared the brunt of racism and sexism first-hand. This gripping story details how a young, black woman has lived through the horrors of the world and not only survived, but found her own freedom and happiness with seemingly everyone against her at every step of the way. The bildungsroman is a dramatized autobiography of Maya Angelou which accentuates the…

Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451, illustrates a futuristic society in which all books have been deemed illegal to possess. If society allows a small group of individuals to determine what is appropriate to read, Bradbury’s vision of our world may become reality. One of the most frequently challenged books in the United States is I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. Because of the harsh reality it portrays, Angelou’s memoir is one of the most controversial books…

Facing Adversity in “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” Bigotry, human suffering, and doubt; these adversities, in all forms, can trap even the most strong-willed of birds into a suffocating cage. It was mostly here where Maya Angelou experiences her life, gazing at the world within the restricting bars of her “cage”. But although her body, mind, and soul becomes downtrodden under the ‘accepted” biases of her time, she manages to break free from her oppression with her unflinching…

The two books, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou and A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines, both tell great stories to their audience. They are able to do this because of the authors styles. I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings is a autobiography where the writer, Maya Angelou, shares her experience with abuse and neglect as a child. As where A Lesson Before Dying is historical fiction that tells the story of a…

Passage 1 “ His twang jogged in the brittle air. From the side of the store, Bailey and I heard him say to Momma, “Annie, tell Willie he better lay low tonight. A crazy messed with a white lady today. Some of the boys’ll be coming over later.” even after the slow drag of years, I remember the sense of fear which filled my mouth with hot, dry air, and made my body light.”pg. 17-18 Racism was a constant problem…

“Boys? No, rather men who were covered with graves’ dust and age without beauty or learning” (Maya Angelou 18). This passage is from page 18 of the book. The character, Mr. Stewart, is referring to the Ku Klux Klan calling them “boys”. This passage’s meaning is to show how sarcastic Mr. Stewart was, while the KKK is looking for someone to lynch. This passage is significant because it shows the amounts of racism going on during this time period and…

The time when English class was solely about reading and writing is now officially long gone! With only over a month into my English 101, I have already gained a remarkable amount of knowledge, wisdom, and understanding not only about writing, (as one might merely assume) but more importantly, about history as a knowledge domain. I’ve also learned how to expand my reading comprehension skills, writing capabilities, and how to grasp an abundance of information about our past on an…

As famous American Essayist John D’Agata once asked, “Can we call any genre a ‘genre’ if, when we read it from different angles and under different shades of light, the differences between it and something else start becoming indistinguishable?” (“John D'Agata Quotes”). This seems exactly the right question to ask of Maya Angelou’s 1969 autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. This memoir describes Angelou’s transformation from a confused child into a successful adult, and it blurs the lines…

This is a story of a black woman named Maya, who had to go through very tough times, severe insults and emotional derailment as a child and grows out to be a strong individual, thanks to a few influential persons, she meets in her childhood and growing years. The story begins around the timeline of 1930s, with narration of Maya Angelou's experience of being rejected by her parents after their divorce. Her insecurity, gradually builds up during her stay in…

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” is an autobiography written by Maya Angelou. She describes about her hard life “caged” growing up as a black girl from the South. Maya Angelou starts the novel about her life in the age of three with her four-year-old brother Bailey. They are turned over the care of their paternal grandmother in Stamps. She describes how the two children were sent away after they parents’ divorce, traveling by train across the Southwestern and…

Continuing to read “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou, I can see that the story contains a few specific archetypes. Such as the character “Momma” being the wise old woman, the archetype of the color “Black” and the plot being the archetype of finding home The first archetype is Maya’s grandmother also referred to as “Momma”, being the wise old women. Maya considers her to be a very stern and religious woman, but very powerful, proud…

After a childhood full of cruelties, disappointments, and being raped at the hands of her mother’s boyfriend, Maya Angelou survived and became the most important civil, human, and Women’s Rights Activist. After her rape she was silent for 5 years, and only through the encouragement of her grandmother did she start to write and act. Her writings won her world acclaim and she was nominated for the National Book Award, a Tony Award and a Pulitzer Prize. She is indisputably…

"Sister Flowers" by Maya Angelou is a poignant descriptive essay extracted from her memoir, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." This narrative provides readers with a glimpse into the life of a young girl named Marguerite and the profound impact that her neighbor, Sister Flowers, had on her during a critical period of her childhood. The essay is a testament to the power of mentorship and the transformative influence of education on communication and respect. In this essay, we…

In the story, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, there are lots of styles. Two of them include racism and displacement. At an extremely young age, Maya fulfilled the results of racism and partition in America. She had been told about the differences in between blacks and whites, which developed her belief that only blonde hair is beautiful and that she is a fat black girl stuck in a nightmare. However, Stamps, Arkansas, was so segregated that as a…

In today’s society, more and more inappropriate material is becoming acceptable. Children are becoming more comfortable with bad language, corrupt movies, and offensive books as they are exposed to this material more frequently. The age they begin to learn about violence, drugs, and sex is lower than ever before. Today’s generation seems to be more experienced and knowledgeable about these shockingly crude things than most adults! Parents can not stop this maturing all together; however, they can slow it down…

In the first six chapters of “I Know Why The Caged Birds Sing”, many events happen. One event, in particular, was the poor white children, also known as the “powhitetrash” children, who disrespected Momma. When Marguerite was ten-years-old, three “powhitetrash” children approached the Store. As they walked closer, Momma told her to head inside. The children mocked Momma by imitating all her body gestures and stance. They also referred to Momma by her first name, which was very disrespectful considering…

In the autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the main character, Maya, and her older brother, Bailey, have a very close relationship at the beginning of this novel. As children, they were each other’s best friends and they were inseparable. They did everything together and they even thought they had their own language that no one else knew. However, when they first moved in with Mother Vivian, their relationship starts to fall apart. “When spring came to St.…