I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

returns to San Francisco with confidence. She resisted racist hiring policies in wartime. At the age of 16 she hides her pregnancy and graduates from high school. She gives birth to a son and feels confident as mother. Maya Angeleou in “ I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” explores African American history through the portrayal of a young woman’s life. Her whole life she continued to write on her own experience as the subject. In the First part she portrays the sufferings of being a poor black…

writing, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, Maya Angelou primarily choose to use the descriptive and argumentative modes of discourse; these two modes proved effective within her work to truly immerse the reader and to change the reader’s mindset as they continued to read her memoir. Maya Angelou, a composer of numerous beautiful poems, had a way with her words that sparked emotions on those who beheld her work and she displayed her descriptive abilities within the pages of, “I Know Why the…

Throughout the course of a lifetime, every human being gains a sense of that which is moral and what is amoral. The books To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou feature this endeavor in their own unique ways. A dominating message within both stories asserts that observing the discriminatory nature of humans is a key source in a child’s compilation of precepts. Each of the books, taking place in the early twentieth century, displayed many…

“The free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the current ends and dips his wings in the orange sun rays and dares to claim the sky.” If I was to leave Oklahoma, there is one thing I am sure I will always miss: the vibrant sunset of a warm summer day by the lake. When I see the birds fly right over the horizon line, diving into the glimpse of beauty, in a moment that I’m always too slow to catch on camera, I stop and think. Think about every opportunity I have received.…

In the Norton reader there is a selection from “I know why the caged bird sings” that is called “Graduation” written by Maya Angelou. The selection “Graduation” is part of an autobiography of Maya Angelou. In this selection Angelou writes about the excitement and also about the difficulties of growing up in a segregated society. Maya Angelou shares what is like to be full of potential and to only be expected to live up to set standards because of the color or their skin. Maya Angelou tells…

author describes how he knows how the caged bird feels. The cage is a reference for the imprisoning effect racism has over him. In the poem he starts with the phrase “I know what the caged bird feels” (1) and later paints the picture of a spring day and the bird only able to enjoy the day from a distance, as he is trapped in the cage. In the second stanza, the author starts with, “I know why the caged bird beats his wings” (8) and this could mean him knowing how the caged bird wants to be free…

things such as maltreatment and hackneyed norms effect you cognitively and emotionally? Marguerite Ann Johnson composed the poem “Caged Bird”, based on her novel “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, in which she expresses her opinions of chauvinism, ethnological politesses, child abuse, civil rights, and societal expectations. In doing…

Though we read numerous books in English, my personal favorite was I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Without degrading the quality of the others, I found that this book covered the broadest spectrum of topics that related the most to me. First of all, it included rape in a more descriptive way. It talked about her emotional state preceding the event. Considering I am a female, I found this to be a more sensitive and realistic topic. Other books talked about rape, but they did not talk about the…

I was your average African-American little girl that didn 't know what her place was in life, pondering daily, what would I be doing in life in a few years? Growing up, I slowly had to realize who I was and learn to accept it. I wasn 't going to change so either I could be proud and confident or shut down and tear myself apart. Unfortunately later on in life I would slowly discover that I didn 't need to tear myself apart because there were several people out there that would do it without…

Emily Bronte, the author of The Caged Bird, was raised in Northern England during the Romantic Era. She lived in an extremely remote area; this contributed to her agoraphobia. She rarely left her home. Her father was a pastor, and she was very religious. Her belief was that nature was perfection and was the closest she could get to God while on Earth. In The Caged Bird, Bronte expresses their longing to be free from the “cage” that holds them. In similar respects, Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote…