Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," has been deemed one of the most controversial, yet influential autobiographical novels of all time. ... Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" has gained a tremendous amount of criticism for its disputable topics concerning Racism and prejudice, The American Dream, and its vulgar textual context. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a story of pride and prejudice. ...

• Word Count: 673
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

She witnessed evil that was generally directed at black women and uses the metaphor of caged bird singing in midst of a struggle to represent confinement as a result of oppression and racism, book contains a sequence of lesson on how to resist oppression. ... Angelou's rape experience depicts the suffering of African Americans and connects it to the theme of caged bird's death because Mr. ...

• Word Count: 649
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In this first of five volumes of autobiography, Maya Angelou tells the story of her life from age three, when her divorcing parents sent her and her brother to live with their maternal grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas, to age sixteen, when, reunited with her mother in San Francisco, she gave birth to her son. Thus her story begins with semi-orphanhood and ends with motherhood. Interpreting her quest for freedom and self-affirmation as representative of that of many African Americans and American women-especially black American women-she presents incidents from her life that illustrate conditio...

• Word Count: 1226
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate