Student Question
In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, how does Maya make working at the store an adventure?
Quick answer:
Maya makes working at the store an adventure through her vivid imagination and keen observation skills. She is fascinated by the variety of items and describes the store as a "Fun House of Things." Maya finds joy in accurately measuring ingredients, turning it into a game where she rewards herself with sweets for success and self-imposes punishments for errors. The store becomes a place of belonging and community, enhancing her love for it.
Maya is a very observant child with a vivid imagination. She is at first mesmerized by the variety of things available in the store, "food staples, a good variety of colored thread, mash for hogs, corn for chickens, coal oil for lamps, light bulbs for the wealthy,shoestrings, hair dressing, balloons, and flower seeds." She describes the feeling of working in such an interesting place as akin to being "locked up in a Fun House of Things where the attendant had gone home for life." Maya describes the "soft make-believe feeling" which the lamplight in the Store gives off; it makes her "want to whisper and walk about on tiptoe" (Chapter 1).
As Maya becomes more familiar with the workings of the Store, she finds that her jobs, which include "weighing the half-pounds of flour, excluding the scoop, and depositing them dust-free into the paper sacks (hold) a simple kind of adventure...
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for (her)." She develops an eye to be able to tell just by looking how much flour, mash, meal, sugar, or corn it takes to make a pound. When she is correct, she receives high praise from the appreciative customers, and when she is wrong, she "quietly but persistently punish(es) (her)self," denying herself the chocolate treats that she loves so much as a consequence of her inaccuracy.
During her time in Stamps, Maya considers the Store her favorite place to be. She describes it as "an unopened present from a stranger" in the early mornings, and says that "opening the front doors (is like) pulling the ribbon off (an) unexpected gift" (Chapter 3).
How did Maya Angelou make working at the store an adventure in her book?
In Chapter 3, Maya relates how she makes an adventure out of measuring silver ladles of 'flour, mash, meal, sugar or corn' to accurate perfection. She tells us how delighted she is to develop an eye for precise measurement.
Furthermore, she states that the eagle-eyed lady customers would always catch any discrepancies in her measurement. Either way, Maya makes a game out of this past-time; when she has succeeded in pleasing her customers, she rewards herself with sweets. However, when she fails, she denies herself some of her favorite treats such as the chocolate 'silver-wrapped Kisses' she loves so much or the canned pineapples she is obsessed with. Maya's love for the store stems from the purpose and sense of belonging the store gives her.
Much of the time during the years Maya and her brother, Bailey, live with their grandmother is spent at the store. The store is the hub for communal activity, social interaction, and business. After the day's work is done, the store also becomes a familiar place where the family gathers to cook and to share their evening meal.