When she is eight, Maya and her brother move to St. Louis to live with their beloved mother. The different environment and people around her makes her feel like in an unknown world. Perhaps Maya and Bailey would have stayed there if it weren’t for Mr. Freeman, her mother’s boyfriend, who sexually molested her. This terrible experience affected little Maya emotionally and condemned her to ‘eternal’ silence. The only person she talked to was her brother and best friend, Bailey. After this unpleasant incident, they were both sent back to Stamps, where Maya recovers her voice after several years thanks to Mrs. Flowers who introduces her to a fascinating world of great authors and their powerful language.
She is an intelligent, quiet, and motivated girl, but her social and economic status makes her feel out of place everywhere she goes. She only trusts her brother because he is the only one that can understand her. However, slowly Maya becomes aware of the racial prejudice and learns how to deal with it without the protection of her grandmother or Bailey. They go back with their mother to California once again due to her grandmother’s coming of age and Uncle Willie’s unstable physical condition. When her mother marries Mr. Clidell not long after their arrival, Maya finds in him the first image of the ‘father’ she ever knew. The family moves to San Francisco, where Maya spends the rest of her teenage years. Her doubts concerning her sexuality leads her to her pregnancy during her senior year of high school.
Even though her journey was painful and harsh, all these experiences helped her mold the once self-hating, insecure little girl, into the confident, strong, and mature woman at the young age of sixteen. Even though she was pregnant, she did not tell anybody and persevered to complete high school and work toward a productive future.
Growing up and surviving in this complex world can be hard, that is why learning about life and accepting oneself is a journey that all people make throughout their lives. It is evident that Angelou did not have an easy childhood, but even though life brings her many hardships, she learns everyday, especially from her grandmother, how to overcome them. These hardships include not only racism and prejudice, but also sexual molestation, poverty, and ignorance.
I would say that the divorce of her parents was something positive in her life because it led her to her grandmother, who helped her spread the seeds and become the woman she is today. It is evident that if Maya and Bailey had stayed with either their mother or father, they would end up being useless people, stealing, consuming drugs, selling their body to strangers, or even killing. Fortunately, they did not lower themselves to that point thanks to Momma. How do I know this? Well, first lets take a look at her parents. Her mother is an irresponsible woman who likes to live life the best way she can. Her inexperience of being a mother takes away her right of being called like one. In addition, her family is involved in some sort of mafia. Maya’s father is another irresponsible and selfish guy, whose girlfriend is jealous of her and stabs her with a knife! No wonder her parents got divorced and still have an unstable relationship through all those years. In the other hand, while in Stamps, she learns many things from the close-tied community she lived in and her grandmother, and admires the perseverance and hope with which her neighbors face everyday.
Although Maya disliked her grandmother’s (Momma) strictness, she loved and respected her for that at the same time. Like everyone else, Momma was subject to white prejudice as well, however the image Maya had of her was like that of an invincible woman that could do anything and would always protect her. But throughout the years, Maya managed to stay above the level of those ‘ignorant’ white people and maintain her dignity up high.
Throughout her life Angelou thinks deeply about racism, religion, and other subjects that we sometimes take for granted. Personally, I was amazed at how much detail she went into and even though I couldn’t see her expressions when telling the story, I could somehow feel her passion through every word in this account. I also admired the openness in her words, mainly because she talks about many issues that others would not normally discuss. Told from her point of view, the book shows the ignorance and prejudice of both black and white people during that time.
As I read the book, I would laugh, be angry, or moved, but one thing for sure is that it made me think about the world we live in and that ‘we’ are responsible of what we have today. A good example for this would be the status of black people today compared to not even a hundred years from now. They have what they have because they fought for it and their long and harsh journey deserve to be awarded.
Maya Angelou probably chose the title “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, which is very convenient for this opening story of her life, because it talks about the struggles of life and how perseverance and hope can help you overcome them and move forward. My interpretation of the title is that the “Bird” refers to Angelou’s people in general, and it is “Caged” in a horrible life of racial discrimination and prejudice, even to this day. However, as Angelou grows up and experiences the world around her, she learns why the “bird”, between those bars of injustice, “sings”; and it sings because despite the struggle that seems to follow her people everywhere, they still have hope and are proud of being a member of the “wonderful, beautiful Negro race.”
One thing I’ve realized after reading this book is that just because an African American woman wrote this book doesn’t mean it is about SLAVERY and longing to be FREE, but it can also be a lesson about LIFE and give you another perspective of viewing it. This is why I would say that for readers of color, this book would be just a piece of history; but for others it is a lesson of life.
