I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Masterplots II: Nonfiction Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Maya Angelou
- First Published: 1970
- Type of Work: Autobiography
- Time of Work: 1931-1944
- Setting: Stamps, Arkansas; St. Louis; and California
- Principal Characters: Maya Angelou, Bailey, Jr., Annie (Momma) Henderson, Vivian Baxter, Bailey, Sr., Willie
- 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
Form and Content
This best-selling autobiographical narrative was Maya Angelou’s first book; it set in motion a writing career to complement her significant work in dance, the theater, and the Civil Rights movement. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a first-person account of Angelou’s life from the age of three, when she arrived in Stamps, Arkansas, to live with her grandmother, to the age of sixteen, when she gave birth out of wedlock to her only child in San Francisco.
In the opening scene Maya flees in embarrassment from the Colored Methodist Episcopal...
[The entire page is 3198 words long]
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