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I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Essay

694 Words3 Pages

I chose this book because Maya Angelou is an award-winning author known for book I know why the caged bird sings. Even though I didn’t know anything about the book, I read good reviews about it. The cover created a warm feeling inside which also caught my attention. The theme of the novel is racism, rape and self-hatred. Maya is black girl growing up in the thirties. Maya is the caged bird trapped inside trying to break through her inner hatred, racism, and rape. The setting takes place in Stamps, Arkansas in 1930’s. About nine years passed in the story, Starting when the main character was eight to sixteen. At the beginning of I know why the caged bird sings, the main character Marguerite Ann Johnson; struggles with insecurities as a young black girl. She felt displaced …show more content…

She deals with white Prejudice, being black and powerless and being a woman. As a child her parents abandon her and sent her and her brother Bailey to live with their grandmother (momma) and their uncle Willie. While there Maya faces racism from her next door neighbors. Although, Maya’s grandmother owns her own store; the family is still harassed and tormented. When a white women files a complaint because a black man looked at her. Most of the black males go into hiding to prevent being executed from the Ku Klux Klan.
This includes Uncle Willie (Maya’s uncle); having to hide him in a vegetable bin. When Maya gets a toothache the nearest black doctor is twenty-five miles away. So Momma takes her to a white doctor who is closer, and since momma lent the doctor money during the depression she feels he owes her. Instead the doctor refuses and says he rather stick his hand in a dog’s mouth than in a black girl’s mouth. After Bailey (mayas brother) came home pale and shocked from seeing a dead black man and being threaten to be locked in with the dead body. Momma

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