I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Analysis

Books are a relaxing way to learn. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is an autobiography by Maya Angelou about a girl growing up in the south facing segregation and the hard times during WW1, as well as, coming of age and trying to find somewhere where she belongs because she is a caged bird trying to be herself. At the age of 3, and her brother Bailey, 4, parents, Vivian and Bailey, divorced and were sent to Arkansas to live with their grandmother, Annie who they call Momma. At the age of 8, her father, Big Bailey, comes to Arkansas to take both kids to their mother in Missouri. Within the little time they were there, Mr. Freeman, their mother’s boyfriend, sexually molests her, and later rapes her. They take it to court and later Mr. Freeman
Vivian marries a man and they move to San Francisco and spends the summer with Big Bailey. Maya runs away from her father’s house due to an apology that turned into an argument between her and his girlfriend, Dolores. During the argument Dolores stabs her. After she was stabbed her father took her to get it fixed up and then she runs to a junkyard and learns how to live on her own and experiences diversity. After the summer, she goes back to Vivian and Clidell and thinks that she is underdeveloped and could be a lesbian, not knowing what is it. She then plans to sleep with her neighbor and then gets pregnant. No one notices and she finishes school and then gives birth to a baby boy. In the end, she is set free from her cage and opens her wings. Although I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is about living 1930s and coming of age, the underlying point is perseverance and
She thinks she needs to be white and her town is so segregated that she does not believe that white people are real. When reciting a poem in front of the church congregation, she runs out because she forgot the lines and the children are laughing at her. After running out she explains that what her dress looks like and that she’ll look like a movie star that everyone would want to be and that she is only black because she “was really white and because a cruel stepmother… had turned her into a too-big Negro girl” (4). She doesn’t think she belongs and that she should be white, but won’t accept who she is. Also hasn’t experienced much outside real world life.
Angelou did not have a father figure and Annie, Momma, was the only real role model in her life. When she moved back with Vivian, she did not get much attention from her mother. The only thing that Vivian cared about was if she had clothes on her back and if she was fed. Angelou states, “She noticed me, as usual, out of the corner of her existence” (277). Vivian cared about Maya, but not enough to notice that she was pregnant. Although Angelou did not have any great role model as she grew older, at age 16 she matured faster than most young girls would have during that