I know why the Caged Bird Sings

by Emma Owen

The 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.

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 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

Illustration by Jessica Pardoe jcpardoe.com

of colour but an even bigger picture. Last year the Black Lives Matter movement built huge traction after video footage showing the tragic death of black people brutalised by white policemen was shown to the world. Riots ensued in America and rallies took place in large cities and towns all over England. Where is that movement now? I believe it’s been swept under the carpet and put back in its box as powerful (largely white men) decide what news is reported on the worldwide scale. Are we any closer to change? Angelou addresses these issues 50 years ago when this book was published, yet are we any closer to change?

After her torment in St. Louis, Marguerite and Bailey both moved back to Stamps to live with Momma, and in her tenth year, she was working as a maid in a white household. Her first encounter with her employer was swallowed by the ignorance and vulgarity whereby she saw Maya, making all assumptions based upon her colour. Marguerite’s identity was shredded along with any sense of meaning. The first question regarding her was ‘is she dumb?’, followed by the comment that ‘the name’s too long. I’d never bother myself. I’d call her Mary if I were you’, so that now the feeling surrounding Marguerite’s diminished her character into a robotic and uniformed ‘Mary’.

Maya’s religion wasn’t just a belief, but a community of Black people who shared their ideas and prospects upon life based upon the Christian ways from the Bible - a community of reassurance, safety, equality, and most importantly, it felt like an escape from the ‘realworld’, a bubble from segregations and racism. Their revival meetings allowed the whole neighbourhood to come together and share their values, acceptance, and meaning. ‘Let the white folks have their money and power and segregation […] and mostly - let them have their whiteness’. The mere element of acceptance and the idea of hope diminishing highlights the unfair equality that teaches society to think differently about colour. Why do such ordinary colours as black and white - present so frequently in everyday life, from clothes to pen to paper - have put such an immense impact and devastation on society when it comes to race? I’m ashamed to read of and even live in a world that has not moved on. ‘How long God? How long?’ emphasises the desperate need for change and action, yet nothing. Nothing happens. No one does anything. The revival meeting also states from the Bible, that ‘before one word of this changes, heaven and earth shall fall away’ indicating the raw sense of getting what you deserve by going to either heaven or hell. Same again - based upon colours. Heaven being white and pure, and hell being dark and black with crime. Why these colours? What makes these colours have such an impact upon lives? To cause slavery? Bloodshed? Death? Two simple colours yet there’s an impact upon the whole human existence. Angelou screams at this societal flaw, as she felt that in all aspects of life, it was ‘awful to be Negro’ due to her having ‘no control over her life’. At her graduation from Lafayette County Training School, a white speaker named Mr. Edward Donleavy, came to speak at her school to show off all the upcoming upgrades to the schools in Stamps, yet he only highlighted the new programmes for the white-only school. Afterwards, he was to highlight some students who excelled from Maya’s school - he only mentioned one black basketball player. Then continued with chances for white kids to become “Galileos and Madame Curies and Edisons and Gauguins” and for the boys who attended her high school to become “Jesse Owenses and Joe Louises”. He didn’t mention a single thing of what a black woman can achieve, and for the boys, they, apparently, could only use their physique to become professional athletes, and if they weren’t sporty, then - based upon a white man’s views - couldn’t be anything else. In Marguerite’s position, she felt that ‘it was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against her colour with no chance of defence’.

As Marguerite grew not only in age but in character, she wanted to be a conductor of streetcars in World War II at fifteen. Nevertheless, her mother’s first words to her were ‘they don’t accept coloured people on the streetcars’. Yet, Marguerite’s ‘immediate fury’ was followed by the ‘noble determination to break the restricting tradition’. Her application gave a ‘full face of astonishment’ to the receptionist since her ‘suspicious nature would not accept’, causing the receptionist to reject her application all due to her colour. Black vs. white ‘were bound to duel to death’ and provided Maya with the drive to seek support from ‘Negro organisations.’ After months of torment from her colour, her prayers were answered, and she was ‘hired as the first Negro on the San Francisco streetcars’. Angelou’s sheer determination and fight against societal values shaped her to be a phenomenal woman still only at fifteen. As her accomplishments continue to shred the flaws in society, I question why racism was only challenged in Stamps, In St. Louis and in San Francisco by Angelou then. Why were societal flaws not addressed and killed thousands of years ago? I feel that I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings helps all readers see the utter distress and violence one has to go through all based upon society. It is our generation, our chance, to kill racism once and for all and allow diversity to be celebrated and encouraged.