I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Maya Angelou
- First Published: 1970
- Type of Work: Autobiography
- Genres: Nonfiction, Autobiography
- Subjects: African Americans, Maturation or coming of age, Family or family life, Memory, Adolescence, Murder or homicide, South or Southerners, 1940’s, Prejudices or antipathies, Manners or customs, Social life, 1930’s, Child abuse, Pregnancy, Rape, Violence, Small-town life, Youth
- Locales: St. Louis, MO, Los Angeles, CA, San Francisco, CA, Stamps, AR
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou's first autobiography, is a story of a child becoming an adolescent, a story of a victim who comes to realize that all people are, to some extent, victims, and a story of survival. It is a lyrical narrative—almost a prose poem in some places—in which the autobiographer's voice is strong and musical, just as the title conjures up musical imagery.
Maya Angelou as a child is a displaced person, separated from her mother and father at the age of three and moved around almost as frequently as a chess piece. Her earliest memories are...
[The entire page is 1723 words long]
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