Maya Angelou's I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings - Research Paper Example

? Maya Angelou's “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” In her autobiography ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’, Maya Angelou depicts her struggle for a sense of identity; she is trying to decipher a sense of selfhood. The book opens with her memories as a three-year-old and ends when she is seventeen. Within this span of her childhood, Angelou portrays the characters whose combined characteristics influence and shape her eventual adult self. It is important to consider the roles of the females in her life as well as those of the males. She seems to gather her greatest resources from the female society of relatives and friends, and she likewise strengthens her strong female affinities as a result of the negative relationships and experiences she finds in most of the male characters. Knowledge is passed to Maya through the female mother figures in her life; this includes her mother, her grandmothers, and Mrs. Flowers. Her first and foremost female relationship, as depicted in Caged Bird, with her paternal grandmother, Annie Henderson, whom Maya and her brother Bailey call Momma. The young siblings are shipped to Momma, in Stamps, Arkansas, by their parents. It is she who raises them during their early childhood years in this rural southern setting of the early 1930's. Momma is known as a good-looking woman, but Maya sees her through different eyes. "I saw only her power and strength. She was taller than any woman in my personal world, and her hands were so large they could span my head from ear to ear" (46). Momma had been married three times. She had two sons, one of whom is Maya's father, Bailey, Sr. Maya accepts Momma as a mother figure and role model. She teaches Maya through her words and through her actions. Maya learns from Momma how racism plays a part in their lives and how to handle and recognize it (47). An important tribute in the book to Momma's strength is how she deals with the "powhitetrash" girls who come up to the store and taunt her. They mock her stance and her facial expressions, and then one girl does a handstand, and in so doing reveals her lack of undergarments. Momma stands her ground in the face of this insult, and though seemingly powerless, she finds her strength within her will. She wills herself to rise above the whole scene. Not unlike her slave ancestors, she sings and hums in the face of adversity (32,33) Momma tells Maya to wash the tears from her face. And as Maya complies she observes, ''Whatever the contest had been out front, I knew Momma had won" (33). Already, the author recognizes the power, strength, and spirit of her grandmother and appreciates her life and teachings. "Her world was bordered on all sides with work, duty, religion and 'her place.' I don't think she ever knew that a deep-brooding love hung over everything she touched" (57). In her work, "The Grandmother in African and African/American Literature," Mildred Hill-Lubin discusses Grandmother Henderson and others like her. Hill-Lubin calls these women the "sheroes" of the time (p. 266). She talks about how the African family has suffered under the burden of slavery and colonialism. However, she feels that the reason for its perseverance and survival is the grandmother. The grandmother's role, function and importance can be traced to the revered status, position, and responsibilities which elders hold in West African society (Hill-Lubin 258). The grandmother often maintained a household which consisted of her unmarried or married children and of her grandchildren; in this way the resources were pooled. The 1930's was a period of rough times, and there wasn't enough money for individuals to live separately. Consequently, some would strike out on their own, as did Maya's parents, and the childrearing was left to the grandmother. She had to be tough and strong in order to pull things together in so many ways for the entire family' Both of Maya's grandmothers are "strong, independent, skillful women who are able to manage their families and to ensure their survival in a segregated and hostile society" (260). Despite her absence during Maya's earlier years, Vivian Baxter, her mother, remains a female figure who influences Maya's self concept. At a young age, Maya expresses a discontent and doubt about her physical appearance. "I was big, elbowy and grating…and shit color…my head was covered with black steel wool" (22). To herself, she seemed somehow too tall and disproportionate. Her mother, on the other hand, was a beautiful, tan skinned woman. When Maya meets her mother for the first time in her memory, she is awestruck by her beauty (60). This warm personality is one which attracts Maya as well as anyone else who meets Vivian Baxter. "They watched her, even when directing their conversation to other customers, and I knew they too were hypnotized by this beautiful lady who talked with her whole body and snapped her fingers louder than anyone in the whole world" (65). How could Maya resist the charm of this intriguing woman who happened to be the mother whom she needed so badly? In her work "The Metaphysics of Matrilinearism in Women's Autobiography," Stephanie Demetrakopoulos reports: Women derive a sense of feminine godhead from their biological connections with another…. throughout a child's life in the home, the mother's influence is stronger for a daughter than for a son. 'Matrilineal consciousness' refers to the mother/daughter patterning of generations that only woman directly experiences…. The emphasis on the matriarchal realm as the bedrock out of which a woman forges her identity is strongly developed by many kinds of female autobiographies. (Demetrakopoulos 180, 183) While it seems paradoxical that Maya would bond with the mother who abandoned her, there is a strong sense of the ache which Maya feels to do so. Maya respects her mother's enthusiasm for life. The fact that Vivian Baxter does not rear her children and that she lives her life socializing does not diminish her love for them. She has "a store of aphorisms which she dished out as the occasion demanded" (261). And, in a certain way these aphorisms all pointed to the need for self-reliance. They are traditionally called "Mother Wit" and are sayings which are passed down from mother to child (MacKethan 51). This is perhaps Vivian Baxter's strongest contribution to her daughter's sense of self. When Maya is a teenager and living with her, Vivian uses these sentiments in a way which causes the two of them to draw closer in relationship than they had previously been. "During this period of strain Mother and I began our first steps on the long path toward mutual adult admiration…’Life is going to give you just what you put in it. Put your whole heart in everything you do, and pray, then you can wait'" (269). Somehow these encouragements and cliches help in motivating Maya to go after what she is seeking at the time, which is a job as a conductorette on the San Francisco streetcar system. Because of her persistence, Maya is successful in her attempts to be hired, and she becomes the first Negro to work on the San Francisco streetcars. In contrast, Maya's father, Bailey, Sr., offers little guidance or affection. For Christmas one year, he sends the children a picture of himself with, as Maya says, "the vanity I was to find typical" (52). Her first memory of her father is when he comes to Stamps in order to take her and Bailey to St. Louis (54) It doesn't take Maya long to realize that her father seems to have no depth of feeling and that he is very superficial and affected. He leaves the children in St. Louis with their mother. Maya reveals, "He was a stranger, and if he chose to leave us with a stranger, it was all of one piece" (60). The next time she sees her father is years later in California where she visits him and his girlfriend, Dolores, for the summer. Dolores feels no warmth toward the tall, clumsy, teenager that Maya has become, nor does Maya feel any toward her father's surprisingly young girlfriend. The combination of the realization of her father's true character and of being literally pushed out and injured by Dolores (who is protecting her turf) is enough to cause Maya to leave and not return. She doesn't feel much for her father, he doesn't feel much for her. She ends up taking nothing positive from him to add to her collection for her sense of self for he has nothing to offer. Mr. Freeman, Vivian Baxter's boyfriend, is the man who rapes Maya when she is eight years old. Maya, her brother, and mother are living with him at the time. At first Maya really desires to have a father/daughter relationship with him. She mistakes his earlier masturbatory advances and embraces for the paternal love that she has been missing (73). Over time, Mr. Freeman becomes frustrated with all the waiting and turns his sexual appetite toward Maya as a substitute for her mother. In her work, "Death as Metaphor of Self," Arensberg writes that the rape "probably stems as much from revenge against the mother as easy access to the daughter….Maya's own need for attention and physical closeness cannot be overlooked" (285). Mr. Freeman is found out, and at the trial Maya testifies against him. She feels that it is her lie of not admitting to the initial embraces which causes Freeman's eventual murder. The whole episode is definitely a factor in shaping the life of the young girl. She is betrayed, in the worst way, by what she thought was a father figure. She is learning, and being shaped, but she gathers nothing positive from this relationship. She is so traumatized by the event and feels such remorse for her perceived part in the man's death, that she vows to stop talking; and, she does just that for about a year. Maya and her brother are returned to Stamps-back to Grandmother Henderson. People try to get her to talk again, but to no avail. In her intuitiveness, Momma arranges for Maya to have a meeting with Mrs. Bertha Flowers, "the aristocrat of black Stamps" (77). Mrs. Flowers is undeniably a mother figure to the silent Maya. However, Maya takes to her slowly at first, through comparisons of her with Momma. She sees a more sophisticated mother figure in Mrs. Flowers, and compares her to her more provincial grandmother (14). Not only does she gain self-worth through this woman, but she also learns of the value of words and language; she learns this from the matrilineal transmission, or voice, of this woman (98). The idea of Mother Wit (oral storytelling) presents itself again through Mrs. Flowers. "She encouraged me to listen carefully to what country people called Mother Wit. That in those homely sayings was couched the collective wisdom of generations" (101). Angelou, the writer, subtly makes her point that this transmission of generational tradition is passed on through the matrilineal element of society. There is one last female character who exerts a lasting impression on Angelou. It is Miss Kirwin, a teacher of hers who is described as, "that rare educator who was in love with information" (216). In looking back Angelou reports, "The allegiances lowed at this time in my life would have made very strange bedfellows: Momma with her solemn determination, Mrs. Flowers and her books… my mother and her gaiety, Miss Kirwin and her information" (218). The author sums it up pretty neatly as to whom she is looking for guidance. She tells us throughout who is involved in shaping her sense of self. Angelou concludes her book in a seemingly abrupt manner. It ends with the birth of her son. Butterfield sees Maya as one who "inspires the urge to protect. Her identity is birdlike and vulnerable, the terrified daughter winning her way slowly toward the certainty of motherhood….The experience of the baby connects the woman to the ages of human birth, death, hope, and wonder" (203). Maya becomes a woman. "With the birth of her child Maya is herself born into a mature engagement with the forces of life" (Lupton 258). Angelou leaves behind her child-self and enters into the world of the matriarch. Along with her, she takes all that she has learned from the significant female/mother figures in her life; she is a composite of them all; she accepts her womanhood. Angelou uses her autobiography as a way of role-modeling. The reader is allowed to see what Angelou has been through, and is aware of the adversities that she has overcome. The style which she delivers in Caged Bird, the humor, the wit, the self-deprecation, are all the very things that indicate to the reader that Angelou has survived. She is able to look back on it all with a sense of humor. However, the lessons-which are substantial-are also very real. The personal survival of this well-known author serves as an example to others who are faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Maya Angelou concludes her autobiography with a sense of an ending; the black American girl child has succeeded in recognizing the constraints that society imposes upon her. These constraints, or bars, had her imprisoned in a cage with her own diminished self-image. By assuming control of her life and gaining acceptance of her black womanhood, the displaced child has found a "place." That place grew from the matrilineal transmission of life lessons. With the birth of her child, Maya is herself born into the role of matriarch. So, while there is an ending, there is also now a beginning (Henke 215). Work Cited Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. 1970. New York: Bantam Books, 1993. Arensberg., Liliane. "Death as Metaphor of Self in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." College Language Association 20 (1976): 273-91. Demetrakopoulos, Stephanie. "The Metaphysics of Matrilinearism in Women's Autobiography." Women's Autobiography. Ed. Estelle C. Jelinek. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980. 181-205. Henke, Suzette A. "Women's Life-Writing and the Minority Voice." Traditions, Voices, and Dreams. Eds. Melvin Friedman and Ben Siegel. Newark: Associated University Presses, 1995. 210-30. Hill-Lubin, Mildred A "The Grandmother in African and African/American Literature: A Survivor of the African Extended Family." Ngambika· Studies of Women in African Literature, New Jersey: Africa World Press, 1986. 257-70. Lupton, Mary Jane. "Singing the Black Mother: Maya Angelou and Autobiographical Continuity." Black American Literature Forum 24.2 (1990): 257-76. MacKethan, Lucinda H. "Mother Wit: Humor in Afro-American Women's Autobiography." Studies in American Humor 4.1-2 (1985): 51-61. Read More