... despite its taboo themes and figurative language for its time period. The novel will leave a long lasting impression of Angelou that will evermore be embedded into the readers mind. Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" has gained a tremendous amount of criticism for its disputable topics concerning Racism and prejudice, The American Dream, and its vulgar textual context. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a story of pride and prejudice. It demonstrates how maintaining a stable ... character and possessing a strong passion for literature can help conquer racism and internal trauma...

• Word Count: 673
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Maya Angelou writes on her experience living in Southern rural then in Los Angeles and San Francisco, the book is a heartwarming yet tragic story of her life from birth to young adulthood. She grew in unstable home environment, moving between her grandmother, father, and mother with her brother Bailey. She was sexually molested by her mother's boyfriend at the age of eight that made her shut off from the world and spoke only to Bailey for years, until her teacher helped her come out of the silence after which she moved to California. She says, "If growing up is painful for the Southern Black g...

• Word Count: 649
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... , Alabama is very difficult and callous for the Negro people. The Negroes must work long hours at ridiculously low pay just to survive, and often it just was not enough. Angelou explains in the early chapters of I know why the caged bird Sings, just how hard life in Stamps is and how her people are able cope. Angelou conveys this so that the reader will have a greater understanding of what ... the times she lived in were like; she is also trying to teach us about ... the circumstances in which her people worked and the spirit that they demonstrated. By describing this, Angelou further e...

• Word Count: 358
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In this first of five volumes of autobiography, Maya Angelou tells the story of her life from age three, when her divorcing parents sent her and her brother to live with their maternal grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas, to age sixteen, when, reunited with her mother in San Francisco, she gave birth to her son. Thus her story begins with semi-orphanhood and ends with motherhood. Interpreting her quest for freedom and self-affirmation as representative of that of many African Americans and American women-especially black American women-she presents incidents from her life that illustrate condition...

• Word Count: 1226
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... California as a 14-year-old to live with her mother again where she attended George Washington High School. She studied drama and dance at night and was a scholar at the California Labor School. As a young adult Maya had already begun displaying signs of her enormous potential by becoming San Francisco's first black female cable car conductor. At age seventeen, ... months pregnant with her only child Clyde 'Guy' Johnson. In her early twenties she met and married her first husband, Enistasious Tosh Angelos. Interracial relationships were frowned upon in the 50's and Angelou's second marr...

• Word Count: 884
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... inspired her famous work, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", which was written in 1970. She is best known for her autobiographical books: All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986), The Heart of a Woman (1981), Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas (1976), Gather Together in My Name (1974), and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), which was nominated for the National Book Award. In her massive ... volumes of poetry are A Brave and Startling Truth (1995), The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (1994), ... Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now (1993), Now ...

• Word Count: 548
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... even demanded them to commit to such a consciousness. This was the foundation of every African - American's understanding of self, and his social environment, and when recognized by an adolescent, this was the marking of their independence. This was their rite to move on to the next level of their life. Maya Angelou's novel I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings is no stranger to a classic novel expressing such a consciousness ... within the Black community. The exceptional novel illustrates the sheer duality of growing up Black in the American South in the 1930s and 40s. We note Maya's coming ...

• Word Count: 952
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate