The representation of childhood in 'I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings' (novel one) and 'Jane Eyre' (novel two) educates the reader about the social, cultural and historical issues of each time.

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The representation of childhood in ‘I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings’ (novel one) and ‘Jane Eyre’ (novel two) educates the reader about the social, cultural and historical issues of each time.

        Novel one was written by a black American writer, Marguerite (Maya) Angelou. The novel is written is an autobiography and was written in the 1960’s recounting events that happened in the period of the 1930’s – 1940’s. The novel was not published until 1984 as racial segregation and inequality for black people was still present in society in the 1960’s.

        Novel two was written by Charlotte Brontë when she was thirty-one. The novel was first published in 1847 under the male pseudonym of Currer Bell. Brontë wrote a letter to the Poet Laureate of the time who advised her to behave like a woman and give up her writing career. Brontë was condemned by the society of the time for making the character of Jane wilful. Unlike novel one, which is a factual autobiography, novel two is written as an autobiography but is actually fictional.

        Both novels are Bildungsroman. These types of text describe the progress of characters from childhood to maturity.  The novelists both use first person narration and this enables the authors to control the story, as it is the narrators thoughts and feelings which are the focus of attention, even when a different character is speaking. The novels are both written by adults but through the eyes of a child.  The writers are trying to recapture the feelings they felt at the time of each incident, which is written about, but the adult writer imposes their views on events. ‘I can now conjecture readily that this streak of light was, in all likelihood, a gleam from a lantern,’ from novel two and ‘I preferred, much preferred, my version,’ from novel one.

In the novels, the main characters, Maya and Jane are both young children who are about ten years old. Maya Angelou and Jane Eyre both have unconventional family lives but whilst Maya lives with her loving grandmother and brother, Jane lives with her hard-hearted aunt and cousins. In novel two Jane Eyre, who is the main character, is middle class by birth. Jane is orphaned and poor. Maya Angelou is the main character in novel one and is recovering from being sexually assaulted by her mother’s boyfriend, Mr Freeman. Although Jane and Maya’s home lives contrast, the situations they are put in have some similarities. The narrators are both symbolic of childhood of the era that they were brought up in. both of the child characters experience prejudice, Jane because she is a poor orphaned female child and Maya because she is a black female child. The characters react to their situations in very different ways. The young Jane Eyre rebels against her aunt because she resents being treated as an inferior to her cousins and the servants of the household. Jane shows this as she repeats the idea of not belonging to the same family as her aunt, how could she really like an interloper not of her race and unconnected with her.’ The young Maya keeps her feelings and some thoughts hidden from other characters but writes about them, ‘the humiliation.’ Both of the narrators hope for equality and both have a strong sense of justice and injustice.

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Maya Angelou’s sexual assault is the heart of her novel and this assault inevitable changes her views of people and events. Novel two was written to show the social status of women in the early nineteenth century and to show that Charlotte Brontë believes in equal rights for women.  Brontë centres her whole novel on the rebellious character of Jane. Brontë uses Jane to show that women are strong- willed and can think for themselves. Brontë creates Jane to show that she believes that women should be treated equally. Angelou also believes in equality and shows this in a fantasy ...

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