SCRIBBLE
I know why the Caged Bird Sings by Emma Owen
T
he narrative of Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings highlights her childhood memories that are clouded by oppression from discrimination based upon the prejudices of racism. After reading about her life, the metaphoric meaning of ‘the caged bird’ overwhelms me, as her harsh upbringing and tormenting times conveys the idea that society trapped her from her childhood. ‘The bird sings’ freedom and liberation that everyone deserves. However, Angelou emphasises her desperate struggle towards release from societal values, people’s ignorance, and quite frankly, the world around her. An account of her childhood, in a book, screams to the world its ugliness and diabolical values and the shackles of racism and misogyny to command the need for change.
white schoolgirls who visited her Momma’s corner shop. Not only was Maya scared of the ‘powhitetrash kids’, but her grandmother exclaimed that they ‘frighten [her]’ also, revealing the idea that their presence was dangerous and nonetheless disturbing. The quote ‘The girls had tired of mocking Momma’ suggests their rude and discourteous mannerisms towards the older generations, as well as their power against people, all because of colour. Later when Marguerite and her brother reconnected with their mother and moved to St. Louis to live with her, Marguerite was oppressed on account of her feminist views, and her lack of knowledge due to her age, and was taken advantage of by Mr. Freeman (her mother’s boyfriend); she ‘awoke to a pressure, a strange feeling’ on her left leg and was later told by Mr Freeman that she ‘had wet the bed’. As a result of her religious and loyal upbringing towards her religion, she thought that she had sinned and was going to hell. She was the one who felt guilt and thought that she would be rejected (again) from her family because of something that ‘she did wrong’! At the age of eight, she was threatened that if she ever told anybody, Mr Freeman would ‘have to kill Bailey’. Her love for Bailey was stronger than her desire for safety and this led to more occasions of rape and sexual harassment. Later, despite the fact she was in court testifying against Mr Freeman, she still lied to avoid disappointment from her mother and against the Bible from her being a victim to rape. By virtue of the eight-year-old’s fight to expose Mr Freeman, he was given a year and one day sentence, however, ‘his lawyer got him released that very (first) afternoon’. This proves the power and powerless, the elder verses the younger, the man against the girl. And of the two, who of course won, and who was left with total haunting guilt and shame for committing a sin that was forced upon her for the rest of her life? These struggles exist in so many news stories all around the world today - not just in terms
The initial feeling of abandonment rides along her childhood as Maya (Marguerite) and her brother, Bailey, are moved to a ‘musty little town’ called Stamps, Arkansas to live with their grandmother (called Momma) and Uncle Willie after their parents separated. At the young and innocent age of ‘three’ she is brought up questioning her parents’ motives of her desertion, and never seemed to adjust to life as well as her brother did. However, Marguerite was acutely aware of the importance of manners, respect, cleanliness, religious faith, and she had a strong work ethic all brought upon by her grandmother, Momma. She was deeply aware of the segregation between the black and white communities due to her confused ideas of what ‘white people’ looked like as well as their ways of living. All she knew and believed was that between both communities, it was ‘the hostility of the powerless against the powerful, the poor against the rich, the worker against the worked for and the ragged against the well-dressed’. Her view of people was based upon the colour of their skin and, subsequently, it was the same for the white community. Maya illustrates her pain and suffering caused by a visit of
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