I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Critical Edition of Young Adult Fiction I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Analysis
by Maya Angelou

In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou brings to life her experiences in mid-twentieth century United States. To most young readers, her experiences will seem harsh: She was sent away by her parents at the age of three, strictly reared by her paternal grandmother, raped by her mother’s boyfriend, injured by her father’s girlfriend in a fight, hid in a junkyard for a month, and gave birth to a child while she was unmarried and still a teenager herself. If the book contained only this sort of harshness, then young readers would come away with nothing more than a deep grief over the injustices of racism, of adult irresponsibility, and of poverty. Such is not the case.

Angelou’s eloquent autobiography is a testimony to the human spirit, to her personal resilience, and to the power of African-American people. These affirmations are woven through the chapters but are sharply visible in her account of her eighth-grade graduation in Stamps, Arkansas, in 1940. (This sketch is often included in anthologies of essays under the title “Graduation.”) In this narrative, Angelou sets the scene with a description of the excitement surrounding eighth-grade graduation: Momma made her a butter-yellow piqué dress, with crocheted cuffs and a pointy crocheted collar; Uncle Willie and Momma closed the Store; the school band played; and the school principal spoke. Not until the heart of the graduation ceremony did the festive mood change. Then, the white speaker, Edward Donleavy, came on stage with another white man trailing after him. The uninvited guest displaced the Baptist minister, who had to leave the stage.

Donleavy’s speech disheartened the audience. They saw themselves through his eyes: “We were maids and farmers, handymen and washerwomen, and anything higher that we aspired to was farcical and presumptuous.” Angelou concludes that the “ugliness they left was palpable,” and she thinks about colors she hates:...