In both Maya Angelou’s memoir I Know Why the Caged Birds Sings and William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29, the authors communicate the sense of solitude as well as the desire to have more to hope for. Maya Angelou’s peers describe her “as being shit colored” with a head of “black steel wool” which brings her awareness “of her displacement” (Angelou 4,6). Maya feels like a pariah in her community because of her appearance. She does not feel contented in her own skin. Shakespeare portrays himself as a “disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes” which contributes to his “outcast state” (Shakespeare 1-2). Shakespeare feels like a dishonor in the eyes of society, making him lonely and depressed. He also tries to pity himself, for his bad luck in life. Due to
