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| Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. New York: Ballantine, 2009. Print. |
Marguerite Angelou is a young black girl
growing up with her brother, Bailey Jr., in Stamps, Arkansas. Her grandmother, whom they refer to as “Momma”,
mostly guides her life lessons. Momma also cares for their lame Uncle Willie, a
man who was proud and sensitive. “[H]e couldn’t pretend that he wasn’t
crippled, nor could he deceive himself that people were not repelled by his
defect” (11).
As a small dysfunctional family, they
manage through the difficulties of a wartime era. Marguerite, referred to as “Maya” by her
brother, learns her place quickly in society.
She does as she’s told and tries to make sense of her world, but
sometimes logic and the way things are do not run hand-in-hand, as they she
thinks they should.
Overtime, Maya faces through struggles of religion,
love, racism, education, sex, survival at its basic level, and motherhood. Her readers are able to follow along as she
manages to find herself amidst the difficulties society placed upon young,
black women. Her revelations are summarized in beautiful anecdotes with conclusions such as;
“Without willing it, I had gone from being ignorant of being ignorant to being
aware of being aware. And the worst part
of my awareness was that I didn’t know what I was aware of” (271).
Anyone who has ever felt that they were a
product of circumstance and has still managed to rise above can relate to this
book. Angelou leaves no room for
guesswork as to why she feels she has been unwillingly kept in a dungy cage her
whole life and yet finds a way, in the end, to sing amidst her social
captivity.
-Mim
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