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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

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Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, to Bailey and Vivian Baxter Johnson. When she was three years old, her parents divorced, and Angelou and her brother, Bailey, Jr., were sent to live with their grandmother Mrs. Annie Henderson in Stamps, Arkansas. Mrs. Henderson operated a general store, and the children's lives revolved around the members of the all-black community who gathered at the store to shop and talk. When Angelou was seven, she and Bailey returned to live with their mother in St. Louis, where Angelou was raped by her mother's boyfriend. This traumatic event and the court proceedings that followed caused Angelou to withdraw from everyone except Bailey, and led her mother to return the children to Stamps. After graduating from the eighth grade, Angelou, along with Bailey, rejoined her mother in San Francisco and stayed there for the remainder of her teenage years. She dropped out of school, worked as a conductor on the streetcar system, became pregnant, returned to school, and graduated just before the birth of her son, Guy Johnson.

During her high school years, Angelou read and loved the dramas of Shakespeare, which led her to study acting. After marrying Tosh Angelos in 1950, she studied dance in New York City and performed in a cabaret theater in San Francisco. From 1954 to 1955 she toured twenty-two countries as a cast member in 'Porgy and Bess.' During the late 1950s she supported herself by singing in nightclubs and living a 'beatnik' life in Sausalito, near San Francisco. In 1958 she moved to New York to study with the Harlem Writers Guild, and by 1960 she was both performing in and writing for the theater. During the early 1960s Angelou worked as a journalist in Egypt and West Africa. Mother and son were reunited at the University of Ghana, where Angelou worked for the School of Music and Drama and Guy enrolled as a student. She returned to Los Angeles in 1966 to lecture at the University of California.

A dinner party in New York City provided the catalyst for Angelou's writing I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. One guest suggested to Angelou that she write about her early childhood and adolescent experiences, and the next day another friend called Random House publishers to suggest that Angelou's story would make a good book. An editor followed through and eventually prevailed on a hesitant Angelou to prepare a manuscript for publication. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, published in 1969, was an immediate commercial and critical success. Hailed as a 'contemporary classic,' the book earned a nomination for the National Book Award and was a selection of both the Book-of-the-Month Club and the Ebony Book Club.

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Angelou, who speaks six languages, is a poet, playwright, songwriter, journalist, singer, actor, short-story writer, and novelist. Prior to the publication of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou wrote, produced, and acted in two-act dramas and musicals, composed poetry, and recorded songs. In the decades following publication of the book, Angelou has written several books of poetry and autobiographical novels, as well as plays, screenplays, and television specials.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the autobiographical story of the pain that accompanies a young girl's loss of innocence. Feeling rejected by the totally segregated society of Arkansas in the 1930s and by her mother who deserts her at age three, Maya must also struggle with a troublesome body image and feelings of sexual inadequacy. She even blames herself for the death of the man who rapes her. Until she gives birth to a son, Guy, Maya feels that she has little or no control of her own destiny. Once she learns to accept Guy, and the events leading to her pregnancy, she begins to feel less like the 'caged bird' of the book's title, less imprisoned by her race and gender. She finds freedom in self-expression and begins to take control of her life.

Hoping to portray emotional reality, Angelou melds fact and fiction in her book. Angelou's account of a white dentist who refuses to treat her because she is black actually took place, but Angelou names him 'Dr. Lincoln' for symbolic emphasis. Dr. Lincoln represents the white establishment that unfairly discriminates on the basis of color, in effect mocking the emancipation statement issued by President Lincoln in 1863 proclaiming blacks free from bondage. This kind of literary technique, combined with Angelou's lyrical prose, results in a powerful and poignant story of growing up black in America.

The book begins in 1931 with Maya's earliest childhood memories and proceeds through the end of World War II. Events of great social significance—from the misery of the Great Depression to the world heavyweight championship of the great black prize fighter, Joe Louis, an event that symbolized the ability of black people to compete in a white-dominated world—occur during this time period. As Maya grows up, the geographic setting moves from rural Stamps, Arkansas, to the metropolis of St. Louis, and on to San Francisco during a time when its Japanese residents were being interned as war prisoners.

Angelou shapes the narrative of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings with two traditional themes of autobiography: the triumph over obstacles and the search for identity. The narrator learns that she can rise above adversity to transcend the 'tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate, and the black lack of power.' In addition to these themes run two parallel and sometimes contrasting themes: the black gospel tradition represented by Grandmother Henderson and the black blues represented by Angelou's mother, Vivian Baxter Johnson. The gospel tradition emphasizes a reliance on religion and quiet stoicism in the face of trouble; the blues tradition invokes a spirit of defiance and free expression.

The main character of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is Maya (Marguerite) Angelou, who recalls her childhood from the vantage point of a woman in her late thirties. As a child, Marguerite, alternately called 'Ritie' and 'Maya,' is a bright, curious, sensitive girl, eager to please others and to learn about her surroundings but self-conscious about her appearance and abilities. She frequently feels ugly and clumsy; these normal feelings of inadequacy intensify with her growing awareness of what it means to be black in the racist South. Her rape at the age of eight and the shame and guilt that accompany it do little to help her self-esteem. But the love of Momma and Bailey, and her passion for reading and observing the world around her, help Maya build her self-esteem.

As she grows older, Maya reveals the resourcefulness and determination that eventually enable her to complete any challenge she creates for herself. When she decides to leave her father's house but is too proud to call her mother, she decides to live for a month in a junkyard community with other homeless children. When she wants to work on a San Francisco streetcar, she fights until she is accepted as the first black conductor. As the book ends, Maya learns to accept her most delicate challenge, her newborn son. Still a child herself, she initially fears her new responsibility as a mother. But she eventually accepts herself as a competent mother and a capable person.

Maya's brother, Bailey, complements her personality. His positive self-image helps Maya face and eventually triumph over her own sense of inferiority. Bailey treats his sister with dignity and respect, not with pity, even after her rape. The two remain close as children, but as Bailey grows older, he feels confined within an oppressive female environment. At age sixteen he attempts to assert his manhood by ignoring the curfew his mother has set and associating with pimps and prostitutes. He angrily moves out at his mother's request, and eventually takes a job with the Southern Pacific railway, but still maintains a close relationship with his family.

Maya's paternal grandmother, Mrs. Annie Henderson, is the matriarchal head of the family. A symbol of strength, religion and protection, she becomes 'Momma' to Maya and Bailey. Beautiful and charming, Maya's biological mother, Vivian Baxter Johnson, introduces her children to the dark, smoky environment of St. Louis's black night-life. Through her, and her glamorous and often violent brothers and friends, the children learn to appreciate the blues and the Time Step, a black American dance. Although Maya and Bailey return to their grandmother shortly after their mother's boyfriend rapes Maya, they eventually return to live with their mother in California. The children's father, Bailey Johnson, rids himself of responsibility by agreeing to send Maya and her brother to live with their grandmother instead of with him. When she is fifteen, Maya plans to reunite with her father by spending the summer with him in southern California. But she cuts her visit short when her father's irresponsibility and his girlfriend Dolores's jealousy drive her away.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings begins as a narrative of a young black girl growing up in the care of her grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas, in the 1930s. The story proceeds chronologically, following Maya's experiences in St. Louis and California, but is not organized with connecting chapters. Individual sections stand alone as self-contained short stories, and Angelou skillfully blends dual points of view—that of the child Maya and that of the adult Angelou—within these units. Hence Angelou assumes two personae: Maya's voice describes in sometimes poignant terms incidents in her childhood and adolescence; and Angelou's adult voice, introspective and objective, makes general observations or editorializes.

Angelou's prose is rich with sensuous imagery that captures the tastes, smells, and surroundings of her childhood. Her vivid re-creation of her experiences, enlivened by humor and colorful dialogue, pulls the reader into the text. Significant moments in Angelou's life stand out with clarity. When Maya meets her mother face-to-face for the first time since she was three, Angelou allows the reader to feel the impact of Vivian's presence: 'My mother's beauty literally assailed me. Her red lips (Momma said it was a sin to wear lipstick) split to show even white teeth and her fresh-butter color looked see-through clean.' In this brief description, Angelou also manages to convey conflict through her parenthetical reference to Momma, Vivian's mother. She loves the glamour and beauty of her mother, but feels inclined to judge her because of her loyalty to Momma, who instilled in her grandchildren strict standards of behavior.

Most of the dialogue is written in standard English, but it occasionally includes realistic snatches of regional dialect and black English. When the point of view shifts from Maya, the child, to Angelou, the adult looking back, the language becomes less colorful and the tone less animated. When Angelou's voice enters the narrative, her serious tone calls the reader's attention to her underlying demand for black equality. For example, after relating the story of her struggle to obtain a job as a streetcar conductor, Angelou shifts narrative gears and directly addresses the reader: 'The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste, and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.' In this passage Angelou seems to be asking for recognition not only of her struggle but of the struggle of all black American women. The 'caged bird' of her title symbolizes all black women who, despite great adversity and oppression, live with dignity and strength; whether the 'caged bird' sings the gospel hymns of Momma or the husky blues of Vivian, she learns to survive and to respect herself in the process.

Segregation was so complete in the 1930s 'that most black children didn't really absolutely know what whites looked like,' and Angelou herself 'never remembers that whites were really white.' In Angelou's account, a patriarchal white community is located only a half mile from Momma's general store—where Maya's family lives and where blacks trade and congregate—but the segregated black community of Stamps constitutes a quasi ghetto.

Law enforcement officials such as the white sheriff who warns Uncle Willie to lay low do little to protect blacks from lawless whites. Practically the only economic opportunity for black males is picking cotton, but a hard day's work in the white-owned cotton fields yields hardly enough income to cover debts at the general store, let alone enough money to last to the next picking season.

Equal education opportunities are also lacking, and the intellectual capacities of blacks are assumed to be severely limited; the schools provide an academic curriculum for whites and an athletic one for blacks. 'The white kids were going to have a chance to become Galileos and...Edisons...and [the black] boys (the girls weren't even in on it) would try to be Jesse Owenses and Joe Louises,' writes Angelou. Using both irony and straightforward description, Angelou confronts racism and gender bias, and tries to sensitize readers to these issues.

Angelou's book includes some rough language and refers to some brutal incidents. Most disturbing is the rape of Maya by Vivian's boyfriend. The actual rape and its painful physical and emotional consequences are honestly and graphically described. Angelou refrains from sensationalizing this traumatic incident and instead realistically depicts her horror, shame and guilt. The public humiliation of a trial and the fact that her uncles kick her rapist to death intensify Maya's distress. Although Angelou has managed to come to terms with this assault, readers might find her account shocking. Angelou is also quite frank in her discussion of her sexual awakening. As an adolescent she becomes confused about her body and her desires; Angelou, however, treats her 'seduction' of a neighborhood boy and her fear of lesbianism in a sensitive, straightforward manner.

1. What does Maya think about her grandmother's religious beliefs? Why is the church so important to Momma?

2. Why is the next door neighbor, Mr. McElroy, able to be independent?

3. What secrets does Maya share with her brother? How does her relationship with her brother develop as they both grow older?

4. How does Maya respond to the violence in her life and society?

5. After her rape, why does Maya refuse to talk to anyone but Bailey? Why will she talk to him?

6. Why does Maya fight the San Francisco street car authorities for a job?

7. What is Maya's reaction when she learns that she is pregnant?

8. Why does Maya dislike herself? How does she learn to recognize her positive qualities?

9. How are Momma and Vivian different? What does Maya learn from each of them?

1. Research Joe Louis's rise to prominence in the boxing world, and the difficulties he faced as the first black champion prize fighter.

2. Angelou states: 'The black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate, and black lack of power.' Find three incidents in the book which illustrate Maya's encounter with each part of this 'tripartite crossfire.' How do these experiences as a victim of gender and race discrimination shape her character?

3. Research the educational opportunities available to blacks in the 1930s.

4. What is a matriarchal society? Explain its affect on Maya's growth.

5. Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Alice Walker's The Color Purple are both novels about a young black girl growing up in a violent, racist society. Pecola in The Bluest Eye and Celie in The Color Purple are both raped by father figures, as Maya is in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Read either Morrison's or Walker's novel and compare the incidents and characterizations with Angelou's work.

The success of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings encouraged Angelou and her publishers to publish four additional autobiographical novels that cover the years following the birth of her son. These works have been received with the same enthusiasm as I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and continue to explore themes of racism and religion.

Gather Together in My Name describes how Angelou supported herself and her child. Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas is about an unsuccessful marriage and her theatrical career. The Heart of a Woman concerns Angelou's life in the 1950s and 1960s, and All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes tells about the four years she spent in Ghana.

CBS presented a television version of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in 1979. Angelou wrote the screenplay in collaboration with Leonora Thuna, and Fielder Cook directed. The television adaptation focuses on the pathos of the black community in the Depression-era South, relying on tone rather than dramatic suspense to advance the plot of the story.

Contributed by: Lyman B. Hagen, Arkansas State University

Source: Beacham’s Guide to Literature for Young Adults. Copyright by Gale Group, Inc. Reprinted by permission.

Appears in

American Literature: Prose; Angelou, Maya

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