I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Essay.
Everyone has ups and downs to their life. The high times and low times that make people who they are. In the book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou, there are many situations that shape Maya's personality and contribute to the person she is today. There are many positive, as well as negative things which both encourage and impede her development. .
Some plot situations which encourage Maya's development start with her days in the junk yard. This time she spent living in a car helped her learn to be thankful for the life she has. As well as helped her appreciate the smaller things in life. Living in the junk yard also helped her gain respect for a broader range of people. For example, before her days in the junk yard, Maya was unsure if people of the white race even existed. But after living, working, and developing friendships with many kinds of people, Maya's tolerance for other nationalities greatly increased.
Another situation which encouraged Maya's growth was when she had her son, Guy Johnson. This helped her grow emotionally because she learned to deeply care for another person, the way only a mother can. She would always be able to love him and shower him in affection. And for the first time, he would always hold his love for her in return. This changed Maya so greatly because she had never truly felt unconditional love before her son. But after Guy's birth, she finally felt this wonderful feeling that no person should be denied. .
One negative situation which impeded Maya's development was when she was raped by Mr. Freeman. Because this man was her mother's boyfriend, Maya could not understand how deeply wrong his acts of rape were. Loosing her innocence at eight-years-old, Maya suffered through a great amount of confusion and mistrust. Infact, she completely stopped talking and communicating with everyone around her as a result of her rape.
Her poem, "Caged Bird," clearly expresses this theme. ... The caged bird represents the black race being held back from freedom by their skin color. ... The caged bird may have little hope of becoming free, but he yearns for freedom nonetheless. ... Her reply was, "How the hell do you know I did escape? You don't know what demons I still wrestle with."" ...
That's why Mrs. ... Hale, "Why, it looks as if she didn't know what she was about!" ... The bird cage seems to be a symbol of some sort of violence or anger because when the ladies found the cage in the cupboard the door had been ripped from the hinges (Glaspell 717). ... I know what happened to bird-like Mrs. ... Wright used to sing too but he killed that too. ...
During her sixty year career, she has published seven autobiographies, multiple poetry books, and three books of essays; and she has also written and directed movies, television shows, and plays. ... She wrote her first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, in 1969. ... "Still I Rise" is probably Angelou's best-known poem. ... She mocks her oppressors when she writes, "'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room" (7-8). In these two lines Angelou is pointing to the fact that she knows that her oppressors hate to see her happy, s...
Censoring Books: An Evaluative Essay Some people feel our world is corrupt due to what is between the cover of a book. ... Maya Angelou discusses her personal experiences in her novel, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. ...
(King, 1994) Maya Angelou wrote her first autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, a memoir of her childhood and young adult period, in 1969, toward the end of the Civil Right Movement. ... (King, 1994) Most of Maya Angelou's poems embraced the message of hope and love. and Still I Rise, written in 1978, captured the idea of inner strength and endurance against racism in America by giving the readers a sense of identity and hope: " You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes,/ You may kill me with your hatefulness,/ But still, like air, I'll rise." ... ...
I believe that The Souls of Black Folk is one of Dubois" best works because of the description of life for an African American during that time, and also for explaining the problem and trying to state options to solve the problem. ... Harper's work as an African American woman gives a different perspective and view that I believe is needed because women were slaves just like the men and had two "inferiorities" that need to be dealt with, and Harper did just that with her contributions to the Women's rights movement and her involvement as superintendent of Woman's Christian Temp...
And yet, it is difficult to see why we should regard "King Lear" as a tragedy for the King is basically a pathetic old man, vain and foolish, rash in his judgment and incapable of controlling his emotions. ... Eliot: "I said the king was an incredibly foolish old man, which God knows he was; and that if he'd been my father I would have run away from home at the age of eight instead of waiting until I was ten...I pointed out that King Lear's opening speech was the height of idiocy. ... The Lear described in many critical essays sounds less like Shakespeare's monarch than the midd...