Who knows why the caged bird sings? Is it really because he is feeling happy? Praising God, or the world? Nobody to make fun of him, call him ugly? Or is he just bored? Has nothing better to do, being trapped in a confined place because of the overpowering of people that dominate him? Perhaps he is not really singing? Maybe he is crying or wailing or shouting, because he is sad or hurt? Hurt in the physical sense of being injured on the body. Or hurt in the emotional sense. Will he ever be free? Maybe that is what he wonders. Or maybe he likes being in the cage? Could we all be free one day, and stop hurting each other? Maybe he is even a she. Not treated the same as the other birds that are male. Who knows, eh?
Sorry about babbling a bit there. Just think about an interesting poem and its imagery and meaning. I hope you’ll grow up to love literature as much as I do. My mother told me not to be so worried about crushing you in my sleep. She’s right; I wake up with you lying at my side, under my arm, asleep like a beautiful little angel. Well, we made it through this one night, and by God’s grace there’ll be many more to come as well. So my past has been a bit grim at times, but I’m sure to have a brighter future with you in my life. Everybody wants to be loved, and damn, don’t we need it. So sleep tight darling, I love you.
Commentary
My creative writing is a piece based on some themes from I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. I looked at the last chapter, when Maya is a new teenage mother looking after her newborn baby boy, and thought about what she must be thinking to herself and feeling about the overwhelming change in her life. I also thought about what she might be saying to her child at this time, a way of putting across her thoughts and emotions. The first few lines are like how many parents would feel greatly about their children, especially newborn children. The child’s father is briefly mentioned, who the mother doesn’t care much for, since she had only used him for her own sexual curiosity and womanly fulfilment.
I thought about how Maya feels self-hatred about herself in the first chapter, especially when she imagines herself to be in a “black ugly dream” that she wishes she could wake up out of, and wants to rather be a white girl with long blonde hair and blue eyes. She goes on to talk to her child, about how she promises to love and protect him, make him feel the opposite of how she had felt at times in her own childhood, lonely, neglected, ashamed and abused. Her speech is profound because she is referencing the racial troubles and prejudice that black people in her community and also all over America have faced from many white people. She also talks about how lucky her baby is to be male, as she has been quite disadvantaged being female, because they are often looked down by men, even in the same community, especially when she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend at the age of eight. As she is growing into a strong, independent woman, in mind and spirit, she is hoping to reflect these same positive attitudes in her son. She really wants the best for him, like any parent would, and she hopes racism will die down in the future so that he could have good life.
The next section of my writing is about discussing the imagery of the caged bird and what it might mean. Maya Angelou’s book title is taken from the poem Sympathy by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and Maya also has her own poem with the same name as her novel. I thought that the caged bird could be singing from happiness or boredom, or its singing could even be mistaken for shouting or crying. This links in with Maya’s passion for reading writing, which she hopes to pass on to her son as he grows up. The ending of my creative piece is just a reference in the book to when Maya is worried about accidently hurting her son when she sleeps next to him, but her mother tells her not to be worried, because she is a mother and will know how to do the right things with love and instinct.
