disaster, the author quickly learned to care for her son, and she loves him deeply. Even the manner of his conception had its positive side. Although the sexual encounter was brief, awkward, and devoid of affection, it was initiated by Angelou, who remained in control throughout. Having endured sexual abuse and rape as a child, she was able to feel an all-important agency and security during this sexual experience.

Maya Angelou gives an account of her formative years in I Know Why The Caged Birds Sing. It is through this account that we establish how the women in her life mold her into the person she becomes. The first person to have a profound influence on Angelou is her maternal grandmother, Momma Henderson. Momma is a strict disciplinarian who instills the values of survival, hard work, respect, education, and salvation on Angelou. She is entrepreneurial; owns the only black store in Stamp, manages to sustain it during the depression, owns the land, and even lends money to some well-known white individuals.

Mrs. Flowers is another of Maya’s role models. She is the one who encourages Maya to speak again after her five-year-long muteness due to the traumatic rape experience. She supports and helps nurture Maya’s enthusiasm for literature and knowledge.

At George Washington High, Maya encounters Mrs. Kurwin, who took particular interest in developing her intellectual capacity. She helps spark Maya’s creativity. Maya is grateful, as seen when she travels back to San Francisco, years later, to simply thank her for her positive guidance.

Maya’s mother, Vivian, also has considerable influence on Maya’s character. She is free-spirited, honest, persistent, loving, and supportive. She teaches Maya to be and do anything that she is determined to. For instance, Maya is determined in becoming a toll collector, despite the odds.

Even though they have diverse personalities and principles, these women’s experiences and advice make Maya who she is; strong, intelligent, persistent, and well-rounded.

Mrs. Flowers is one of Maya's greatest role models. Maya refers to Mrs. Flowers as "one of the few gentlewomen I have ever known" and writes that Mrs. Flowers "has remained throughout my life the measure of what a human being can be." By being genteel and refined, Mrs. Flowers makes Maya proud to be black. Mrs. Flowers is also clever enough to restore Maya's speech after her episode with mutism by telling her that communication is what separates humans from animals. Mrs. Flowers provides Maya with books, which she instructs Maya to read aloud to regain her speech. She also provides Maya with invaluable lessons about life, such as to be intolerant of ignorance but tolerant of illiteracy.

Miss Kirwin, Maya's teacher at George Washington High School, is another role model. She is a brilliant teacher who knows how to inspire her students with her love of knowledge. Miss Kirwin treats her students with respect and motivates them to read widely and gain knowledge. She does not treat Maya any differently as a black student, and she respects students for their scholarship, rather than based on the color of their skin.

First of all, her mother, Vivian Bailey, is a positive role model.  Vivian is a strong, independent woman and a wonderful mother.  She shows her children how to stand up for what is right, confront people when needed, and show compassion always.  She also listens to her children and gives them support, allowing them to thrive.

Maya's grandmother is similar, although more strict than Vivian.  She shows the children discipline and keeps a tight rein on them.  She also demonstrates the need to stand up for oneself and to confront injustice when she sees it. 

Mrs. Flowers gives Maya a different view of African-American woman than her family.  She is genteel, well-educated, and refined.  She allows Maya to see a different way of life, and helps to introduce Maya to the joys of literature.

Maya's teacher, Miss Kirwin, also demonstrates compassion and teaches the importance of it.  She is kind and open with her students, and encourages them to express themselves.

Not to leave out the men, Daddy Clidell allows Maya to see what strength and social success looks like.  He keeps his family strong both emotionally and financially.

Maya Angelou's mother was called Vivian Baxter. At the beginning of I Know Where the Caged Bird Sings, she is absent and separated from the author's father. She only enters the narrative when Maya and her brother Bailey go to live with her in St. Louis. Angelou describes her as being very beautiful, too beautiful to be a mother, and having a magnetic personality. Physically, she resembles the film star, Kay Francis, to the extent that when they were separated, Bailey would go and watch Kay Francis films at the picture house to remind him of her.

Initially, Vivian is a cold and distant mother who seems unsuited to motherhood. She fails to notice that her partner, Mr. Freeman, is abusing her daughter, and the author does not consider confiding in her. She is the type of parent who spoils her children on occasion but is unreliable. However, at the end of the book, when the author goes to live with her mother again, this time in California, Vivian seems to have changed to some extent. She is still not a typically maternal figure, but she is more supportive of Maya, helping her to get her first job and guiding her when she becomes a mother herself.

Clearly the first character that was a positive role model for Maya was Mrs. Bertha Flowers, who manages to get Maya to open up and love herself after the rape she endured. This event occurs in Chapter Fifteen of this moving autobiography, which opens with the following paragraph:

For nearly a year, I sopped around the house, the Store, the school and the church, like an old biscuit, dirty and inedible. Then I met, or rather got to know, the lady who threw me my first life line.

It is of course Mrs. Bertha Flowers who has a massive transformational effect on Maya, helping her to see that she was not in fact the "old biscuit" that she thought she was and that she was special and loved. The simple act of inviting Maya over to her house and having tea with her and reading to her invests Maya with a new sense of self worth and helps her to see herself differently. Note what Maya says after she leaves Mrs. Flowers's house for the first time:

I was liked, and what a difference it made. I was respected not as Mrs. Henderson's grandchild or Bailey's sister but for being Marguerite Johnson... All I cared about was that she had made tea cookies for me and read to me from her favourite book. It was enough to prove that she liked me.

Thus it is that at a critical stage in her life, Maya is helped through her feelings of low self-esteem because of her rape through one of the first characters who acts as a positive role model and teaches her how to love herself and how to respect who she is as a black woman.