TOW #12: IRB "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" (part 1)

Maya Angelou, in her famous book "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings", tells the story of her childhood full of hardships. Her and her brother, Bailey, are sent from their parents in California when Maya was just three years old. She grows up in Stamps, Arkansas with Bailey, her grandmother, whom she eventually calls “Mama”, and her physically disabled uncle. Maya spends much of her childhood working in her grandmother’s general store. Out of nowhere when Maya is around eight years old, her and Bailey are suddenly visited by their father who takes them to St. Louis to live with their mother. There, Maya is molested and raped by her mother’s boyfriends and returns to Stamps after she refuses to talk to anyone in St. Louis except Bailey. Published in 1970, Angelou’s story explains the hardships of African American’s earlier in the century. Adults who are uninformed about the kind of lives some African Americans had to lead during the times of segregation would benefit most from this book, which puts the everyday lives of these oppressed people into perspective. When talking about being sent to town by her grandmother for an errand, Maya remembers “There was joy going to town with money in our pockets and time on our hands. But the pleasure fled when we reached the white part of town… we had to cross the pond and adventure the railroad tracks. We were explorers walking without weapon into man-eating animals’ territory” (Angelou 25). Her inclusion of vivid imagery describing her journey and use of metaphor to compare white people to “man-eating animals” conveys to the reader how separated races were during segregation, and the fear that African Americans felt for whites. This kind of language ad description is continued throughout the book that outlines Angelou’s life. By telling her own story, Angelou tells the stories of countless other African Americans living in the segregated South. She is able to reach her audience and instill profound understanding within them, not only telling what happened but explaining indirectly what kind of effect it had on her.