The poem “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou can also be used in the context of the struggles of the African American at the time when they were forced into slavery (Angelou). Angelou wishes that these social prejudices that jeopardize peaceful coexistence be the cage that should be removed to promote peace and liberty (Angelou). The societal prejudices are the cage in which the black and the white are enslaved. The mere fact that the caged bird wishes to escape from the cage indicates that the blacks also wanted to live as equals with the whites (Angelou). The black man was seeing what was happening all around, more especially when the comparison is made on the life within the cage and that one outside it. Analysis made by the historians shows that racial discrimination haunted the black man in America at around that time. This is probably the main message of “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”. She talks of a caged bird that sings (Angelou), which can be interpreted as the freedom the blacks in American. I choose to analyze the poem from two perspectives that are a poem denoting the life of Maya through the ups and downs of her life and from a bird’s eye view, a poem describing the life of the black Americans in the 1930s (Angelou).įrom a political understanding Maya uses the symbolism of the caged bird to depict the oppression that the blacks were under in the 1930s. The Message of “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” The poem “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” published in 1983 is also a reflection of it.
The Angelou’s childhood experience her life in general.
She pressed on amid the difficulties to even receive great awards. However, her passion for writing did not die with her difficulties. Though, later on, she was married, it did not last long. Her life is full of challenges for, at the age of sixteen years, she gave birth to her son Guy, and she started trending down the life of single parenthood. Maya believed that she had caused the death of the man and felt guilty about the whole incidence, her reasoning being that had she not told revealed the identity of her rapist, he would be alive. She did not speak to anyone after her uncles killed the man who raped her. This fact devastated Maya for five years. She was sexually abused at the age of eight by her mother’s lover. It is during this time that she encountered the difficulties in her life that shaped her to be the great woman she is today. She had to live with her grandmother after her mother and father divorced. Maya Angelou was born on the 4th April 1928. From my understanding of her autobiography, Maya had a difficult childhood which may have intrigued her to write the poem “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”. I aim to find out why she could relate to a theme of a caged bird in many of her poems. In this essay, I make a research of the life of Maya Angelou. Learn More Maya Angelou: Facts from Biography
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