Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis to Mr. Bailey and Mrs. Vivian Baxter Johnson. Sadly, at the age of three, her parents divorced and Marguerite and her brother, Bailey Jr., who nicknamed her Maya, were sent to live with their father’s mother. Thus began the roller coaster of Marguerite’s life. She went back and forth from her mother to her grandmother on a couple of occasions. And finally, when she was seven, she returned to live with her mother. These living conditions however, were soon terminated when her mother’s live-in boyfriend raped her. When Marguerite finally came up with the courage to confess to her mother what had happened, the man who had raped her was mysteriously murdered. After that tramatizing expierence, she returned to live with her grandmother and was a voluntary mute for five years. (Showalter, 3)

When asked questions reguarding this portion of her past, Angelou only said, "The mature woman looks back on her bittersweet childhood, yet her authorial voice retains the

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