Maya Angelou was a poet, writer, actor, streetcar conductor, singer, dancer, cook, memoirist, educator, dramatist, civil rights activist and a teen mom. Where did it all start? It all started on a special day in April. Maya Angelou was born on April 4, 1928 . Her birth name is Marguerite Annie Johnson. When she was three, her parents got divorced and she and her brother went to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. When Maya Angelou was seven, she was molested by her mother’s…
Caged Bird. It is through this poem that Maya expressed how African Americans needed to earn respect by standing up for their rights and by finding their voices. Caged Bird is a metaphor. Maya didn’t mention a particular race, but she made it known that whites were given more freedom than blacks. She starts the poem off by illustrating how the free bird, or “white race,” is untroubled. She hints how the white race ruled society and how they did so unjustly. She continues to say “the free bird…
You probably have heard of her, but under a different name. Does Maya Angelou ring any bells? Dancer, actress, singer, writer, playwright and poet, this phenomenal woman strode past many of the societal barriers of her youth, as well as her own personal inhibitions. Maya did not have an easy life, by any means. She was raped multiple times by her mother’s boyfriend, kept silent under threat for her brother’s safety. After the crime was revealed, Maya’s uncles murdered her rapist. The guilt from…
Seminole State College "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." Historical ADENIKE -C-ADERIBIGBE ENC 1102…
two thousand miles away, Angelou becomes pregnant with the child of a stranger (Angelou 77, 279). Parents object to the book “raising sexual issues without giving them a moral resolution” (Sova 212). The explicit scenes led to I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings landing third of the top one hundred banned books on the American Library Association’s 1990-2000 list; it has been challenged publicly 39…
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou describes her coming of age as a mature but insecure black girl in the American South during the 1930s and later on in California during the 1940s. Maya’s parents divorce when she is only three years old and ship Maya and her older brother, Bailey, to live with their paternal grandmother, Annie Henderson, in rural Stamps, Arkansas. Annie, whom they call Momma, runs the only store in the black…
In Maya Angelou’s poem, “Alone”, discusses dark themes that are incredibly relevant to stereotypical poetry. This poem is very appropriately titled “Alone”, because it is about the speaker discussing lonesomeness. She discusses her own loneliness, the loneliness of others, then finally a call for action regarding how to not be lonely. The speaker reminisces about her lonely life using a very melancholy tone, but then shifts into a more blunt tone as the reality of loneliness arises. The…
Question 3: Because Angelou’s description has a strong narrative component, it isn't surprising that there’s a considerable amount of dialogue in the section… What do these imagined scoldings of Momma reveal about young Angelou? How do they relate to Mrs. Flowers’s subsequent “lessons in life”? Angelou’s imagined scoldings of her Momma reveals that she is ashamed of her mom's lack of english when speaking to Mrs. Flowers. Angelou in a way looks up to Mrs. Flowers because,”Mrs. Bertha Flowers…
Americans, Angelou was limited to things she could do. Well atleast that is what society told her. Society telling her to not do certain things due to her color made Angelou want to go out and do them even more. In Angelou’s writing “Caged Bird” she states “The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of…
I Learned I was a Phenomenal Woman Marguerite Johnson later known as Maya Angelou was born on April 4th, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri. Marguerite Johnson was raised in St. Louis, Missouri as well as Stamps, Arkansas. According to her website, Stamps at the time that she was raised, was the frontier of the South during the 1930s and 1940s when Johnson was growing up, Stamps ran rampant with racial discrimination and physical brutality. Her grandmother from age 4 years old to 8 years old raised…