Angelou

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings centers around the story of the struggling childhood of an African-American girl named Marguerite. Even though it talks about a specific childhood, in a specific time period that in my generation may not have experienced, I feel this was a timeless story. What makes it timeless is the themes that were in the book, which people can relate to. With such themes like racism, sexism, identity, and rape, this book will evoke deep thought to anyone that reads it.

Maya uses vivid descriptions and her sense of humor to recount the hardships she faced as a kid. Her use of dialogue and wording of sentences made it seem very geniune as a young child was writing it. She established her voice well from beginning to end. We could see the growth of the voice as she grew older. It's incredible that she experienced all of these things in a lifetime, let alone before she was 18. One event in particular was at the end in the story wher she decides to have sex with a guy because she was worried that she wasn't a female. She then gets pregnant and finally accepts who she was as a mother to end the book.

There was a lot of shocking moments for me just in the last 20 pages. I found it amazing though that she just took it in stride. I never read this book before, so I was quite shocked at the ending. It was an ending that I didn't see, kind of what a fictional writer would do. But since it's real, you know this person is something special. To me this story represents the idea of the “American dream.” Only in America where someone can endure so much pain and still rise up and become something better. It gives people hope I think. She was raped, homeless, an unmarried teenage mother, and still was able to work past that and become a very successful writer.

Writing Exercise:



I remember my first day of school. I woke up early because I wanted to dress myself. I didn’t know where mom put my cool Spiderman shirt, so I decided just to wear the clothes that I slept in to school. I had a bowl of Fruit Loops for breakfast. After that I put on my Teenage Mutant Ninja turtle backpack and walked to school with my Mom. The problem was I was still an hour early before school started, so I sat on the front porch, while my mom watered her flowers ears suddenly feel from my eyes when I saw the first kids walk to school. I couldn’t stop crying. I’m not sure what it was. Maybe I was afraid of going to school or the realization that I will be alone with a bunch of strangers. I started walking to school with my mom who was holding my hand.

This exercise was hard for me since I don’t really remember what was going on around me, but just how I felt about the situation. I remember my movements vividly and what I was doing, but I was very unaware the smell, the texture, and the look of the scene. I mean I can pretend what the weather was like, or how the Fruit Loops tasted, but I can't honestly say if that was true or not.