I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

Maya AngelouNonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1969

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Themes

Race and Racism

While I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is primarily a coming-of-age story, it is also an in-depth analysis of race and racism in America in the 1930s and 1940s. Maya Angelou’s narrative is full of observations on the subject of racial discrimination and segregation. As a well-read, intelligent child, Maya doesn’t understand why she is treated differently because of the color of her skin. Angelou recounts many examples of discrimination, which take place mainly in Stamps. For instance, when she has a terrible toothache and a local white dentist refuses to see her because he doesn’t treat “colored people” (188). Since before the incident, Maya had minimal exposure to white people, his attitude astonishes Maya, and she feels bad for Momma, who is forced to beg the dentist to help Maya.

Unlike other residents of Stamps, Maya refuses to accept the discriminatory attitudes and tries to challenge them. When her white employer, Mrs. Cullinan, gives Maya a new name, erasing her personhood, the girl rebels and seeks revenge. Her reaction differs significantly from that of Ms. Glory, whom Mrs. Cullinan also renamed for her convenience. While Ms. Glory accepted Cullinan’s erasure, Maya refuses to do so.

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When Maya moves from Arkansas first to Oakland and then to San Francisco, the girl discovers that not all towns are as racially segregated as Stamps. Although she still feels a discriminatory attitude towards Black people, she also sees that people of different racial and cultural backgrounds can coexist peacefully. In this regard, San Francisco becomes the opposite of Stamps, as it provides the space for Maya’s growing sense of tolerance.

Literacy and the Power of Words

Feeling lonely and abandoned from a young age, Maya turns to books for company and solace. She shares her love for reading with her brother Bailey, and the two become frequent visitors at a local library. Maya’s belief that words are a powerful weapon is so strong that when her rapist, Mr. Freeman, is murdered, she is sure that it is her words that killed him. Therefore, she comes to believe that there is malignity in her that would come out as soon as she opens her mouth, so Maya refuses to speak to anyone except Bailey. After spending almost a year in silence, Maya befriends Mrs. Flowers, who gently encourages the girl to start reading aloud. Following her advice, Maya finds healing in books and soon comes out of her withdrawal.

During a church revival meeting, Maya closely observes the parish members and notices how much the preacher’s words transform them. When they came to the meeting, they were exhausted and demoralized after the day’s work, but as they listen to the sermon, their faces light up "with the hope of revenge and the promise of justice" (127). Thus, Maya comes to realize that words have the power to destroy and to heal, and she becomes an even more avid reader and a more attentive listener.

Identity and a Sense of Belonging

From a very young age, Maya struggles with a feeling of displacement. After their parents send her and Bailey away, Maya tries to develop a sense of belonging in Stamps, but to no avail. Although with time, she becomes comfortable being among her Black community, Maya finds it hard to identify with them. She doesn’t share their conservative views and their religious fervor and thus always feels like an outsider in Stamps, despite the close bond she shares with Momma.

At school, Maya stands out among other children because she speaks proper English and loves studying and reading. Therefore, during her years in Stamps, Maya makes only one friend, Louise Kendricks. In Louise’s company, Maya no longer feels like a misfit, but soon she has to leave her friend behind and move to California. When the siblings arrive in San Francisco on the eve of the Second World War, the city is undergoing drastic transformations. Ironically, Maya’s sense of belonging is at least partially the result of the removal of Japanese Americans, who are forcibly interned after America declares war on Japan in response to their bombing of Pearl Harbor. Black people are able to fill the economic vacancy left by Japanese Americans, and their presence and contributions to the city increase just as Maya arrives.

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Maya’s sense of belonging is also shaped by her becoming a mother, which is the end result of her own interrogation into whether or not she is a lesbian. After questioning her developing body and comparing it with other young women she sees, Maya determines that having sexual intercourse will help provide her with a more stable sense of self. In a roundabout way, this is the case. When Maya accidentally becomes pregnant and gives birth to a child, she finds that she has the support of her family and feels a strong, stable bond with her new child.