Why I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Essay
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is one of several Autobiographies by Maya Angelou, originally published in 1969, and had been reprinted over the years. I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings covering a large part of Angelou’s early years. Being an autobiography, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings tells a story, and does so effectively, but it does much more than that as well.
First and foremost, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings is a story. Each chapter is about some aspect of Angelou’s childhood, telling readers a story about how she and her family reacted to it or how they were affected by it.
One such example of this storytelling is an interesting moment Angelou shared with her crippled uncle, Willie, early on in the autobiography. Angelou just returned home from school, and …show more content…
Some time after returning to her hometown in Stamps, Arkansas, from St. Louis, Angelou begins talking about Mrs. Flowers, an acquaintance of Momma’s. One day, after a visit with Mrs. Flowers, she returned home with cookies. When mentioning to her brother that she had cookies for him, she said, “By the way, Bailey...” Momma asked Angelou to repeat herself, which she did. She was confused, as was I. For saying this, she was beaten, and she and her grandmother prayed about it. According to Angelou, her grandmother told her that Jesus was the way, so saying by the way was using God’s name in vain. Even thought Bailey tried to explain the meaning Angelou meant, their grandmother wasn’t happy about it, because she described it as a term white people used. Angelou genuinely felt guilty about what she did, which is understandable. An authority figure in her life, her grandmother, beat her and was praying for her, so she must have done something wrong. The way she depicts a child automatically assuming they did something right or wrong because of how older family members reacted is well
First and foremost, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings is a story. Each chapter is about some aspect of Angelou’s childhood, telling readers a story about how she and her family reacted to it or how they were affected by it.
One such example of this storytelling is an interesting moment Angelou shared with her crippled uncle, Willie, early on in the autobiography. Angelou just returned home from school, and …show more content…
Some time after returning to her hometown in Stamps, Arkansas, from St. Louis, Angelou begins talking about Mrs. Flowers, an acquaintance of Momma’s. One day, after a visit with Mrs. Flowers, she returned home with cookies. When mentioning to her brother that she had cookies for him, she said, “By the way, Bailey...” Momma asked Angelou to repeat herself, which she did. She was confused, as was I. For saying this, she was beaten, and she and her grandmother prayed about it. According to Angelou, her grandmother told her that Jesus was the way, so saying by the way was using God’s name in vain. Even thought Bailey tried to explain the meaning Angelou meant, their grandmother wasn’t happy about it, because she described it as a term white people used. Angelou genuinely felt guilty about what she did, which is understandable. An authority figure in her life, her grandmother, beat her and was praying for her, so she must have done something wrong. The way she depicts a child automatically assuming they did something right or wrong because of how older family members reacted is well