Paper on the Memoir I Know Why a Caged Bird Sings
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Paper on the Memoir: I Know Why a Caged Bird Sings
Undoubtedly, our article is going to get focused on the memoir of the book written by renowned African-American writer Maya Angelou. The book titled I Know Why a Caged Bird Sings a beautiful journal that depicts the life and experiences of a struggling woman who rose and achieved exemplary status on the field of literature despite the many challenges she had to undergo through. The problems were a furnace through which she got refined to become an accomplished and emotional writer who used a mix of styles to convey a message to her audience. Maya Angelou is not just like any other woman but a woman with a big heart a noble character that can be deemed to be peerless and worth emulating by both women of her time and in our world today. The lessons from the life of Maya Angelou always relevant and influential in the world today. Women in society must stand up and endure hardship as they hope for a better future full of success and pride of the significant accomplishments in life.
Furthermore, Maya Angelou was a woman who went through a lot in life. First, the book records how she was sexually assaulted at a tender age, yes a tender age of eight years. The man who raped her was no stranger but a boyfriend to her mum. The man committed such a heinous crime to a young girl and completely affected her pride and self-worth. But what is encouraging about the story is that she opened up and testified against the perpetrator who gets jailed for just one day. Immediately the man was freed the uncles of Maya Angelou killed the man due to anger and in a sign to revenge. The death of the perpetrator affected Maya more since her conscience was ripped off and torn with regret. She became mute for five years until their neighbor Mrs. Flowers introduced her to read poetry aloud, to the surprise of the parent little Maya was able to gain her self-worth again and she saw sense to live once again. The memoir is full of the struggles of women and to be specific black women at the moment racialism and segregation was at a record high in the South. The woman struggles to gain their self-confidence and self- acceptance.
Also, the cultural context of the memoir is the culture of the South in the ’30s, and 40’s when prejudice was high in American South states. The blacks were there to be seen and not to get heard. The women during the time, especially the black women get oppressed in society with no say on all matters affecting them, servitude was the order of the day, and challenges like sexual assault get witnessed in their neighborhoods without an activist or a voice to speak for them and solve the problems.
Besides that, the woman exemplified that it is only through the strength of character and developing a passion for doing something constructive can considerably change be made. The initiative to love literature was instrumental in shaping Maya’s life and giving her platform to ventilate issues that people were going through in the struggle of the moment which was segregation. The 1930s and 1940s were terrible years in the South as segregation and racism were higher than never before. The time Maya Angelou wrote the memoir, I Know Why a Caged Bird Sings was during the period of civil movements (Ejupi and Boshota, 2018). The ’60s were the years when the revolution was brewing in America and the woman ready to share her experiences and hope that America will soon be a country that treasures freedom and treats all people equally irrespective of their race, gender and status was quite monumental and inspiring. The book resonates hope amidst the challenges of the present moment; freedom is going to come finally no matter how long it was going to take. The reason why the caged bird always sings is that it has hope that it will be set free at last.
That aside, the memoir is based on a historical period when the blacks in America get segregated and treated as a lesser being by their white counterparts. Maya Angelou becomes the first black woman to publish a book and inspire black women that it can get done irrespective of their situation, racial segregation. The racial prejudice in the time was sky high, and blacks went through many challenges that no one was genuinely ready to solve, it needed the blacks, who were the victims to rise to the occasion and say enough is enough. The memoir, therefore, shows how the traditional system was hard for the blacks especially the women to thrive in life.
Also, the cultural context and political landscape were unfavorable to the minorities who were the blacks. The political elite who get tasked with the responsibility of making legislation did so at their benefit without considering the opposition who were facing injustice left, right and center. The blacks were get given the right to vote; the courts get comprised of White attorneys and judges meaning an accused black person get counted as a convict even before hearing the case. Such prejudice and corrupt system of impunity favored the whites while pushing the blacks into walls of hopelessness (Ejupi and Boshota, 2018). Maya Angelou believed strongly that freedom for the oppressed blacks and especially women were coming to pass in the fullness of time. The initiative to become an activist for the rights of blacks and women was strongly embedded on the convictions of hope and believe that it can get done for the better of the lives of the blacks and women who were prejudiced during that moment.
Furthermore, Maya Angelou chose the title of her memoir which was published in the year 1969 from a poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar. The poem by Dunbar describes the bird that is struggling to escape from the cage. The metaphor is the style used here by Maya Angelou. The caged bird represents how Maya Angelou was confined and how she fought to gain freedom. The confinement here means the challenges that Maya Angelou and people of her generation went through due to racism and oppression by the supremacists who segregated them and treated them as lesser citizens.
Also, Maya uses the musical style shifts from one mood to another. The lyrical style conveys authentic emotions that vividly explain and show the situation of the moment. The tone that Maya uses in her work keeps shifting from a happy mood to a sad tone. The book shows the description of the sufferings, but it gives hope that finally hope will win and freedom will flow like the waters. Other styles that Maya uses in her book are imagery, simile, personification, and diction to convey the message vividly to her target audience. The technique employed by Maya Angelou is explicitly chosen to do the work to be unique and more interesting to the audience to send the message home that injustice must get fought with hope and endurance.
In conclusion, the struggles of black women over the years have been tough, and the headway that the present world is enjoying has a long story. The success that women have been able to achieve is a result of women in the former generations who sacrificed themselves to ensure that the future is luminous. Women such as Maya Angelou made a tremendous step in gaining self-acceptance amidst the challenges and surging forward with self-confidence to lay a foundation stone in the fight for gender parity and freedom to breathe free from prejudice and any form of segregation. The women in society are vulnerable to many challenges ranging from sexual abuse to other biases, but they must stand up and fight for their rights. Through accepting the situations that women and other minority groups who are vulnerable go through will be an initial step towards making a breakthrough in an avenue of life. The blacks in America especially the Southern states was high, and the blacks get segregated without getting a chance to access whatever the whites got, segregation and racism were the struggles that the people during the time went through. Maya Angelou is a woman whose character and attitude can be emulated by those who have to fight any form of injustice that confines and stifles their freedom and space to thrive.
Works Cited
“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” Maya Angelou : Adventurous Spirit From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970) to Rainbow in the Cloud, The Wisdom and Spirit of Maya Angelou (2014), doi:10.5040/9781501307881.ch-003.
“Maya Angelou as spirit leader.” Maya Angelou : Adventurous Spirit From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970) to Rainbow in the Cloud, The Wisdom and Spirit of Maya Angelou (2014), doi:10.5040/9781501307881.ch-012.
Ejupi, V., and H. Bashota. “The Cosmopolitan echo of Maya Angelou in her novel “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings“.” 2018 UBT International Conference, 2018, doi:10.33107/ubt-ic.2018.135.
Summaries, I. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou – A 30-minute Instaread Summary. Instaread Summaries, 2014.
