GG Mormorunni

Biography - AM Cohort

Essay #1 – I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Analysis

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you,” Maya Angelou
writes in her memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. The story focuses on Maya, a young
Black girl in the 1930s, after her parents leave her in Stamps, Arkansas with her grandmother.
She grows up during the time of segregation and deals with racism and poverty as a result. She
struggles with not only external traumas, like rape and abondoment, but also with internal
conflicts surrounding her identity, guilt, and self-doubt. Angelou uses a variety of literary
devices including poetic language, symbolism, and overarching themes to illustrate the impact
those traumas had on her coming of age, and to describe the process through which she found
her voice and internal strength in spite of them.
In her memoir, Angelou describes her many moves throughout her childhood– initially
to Stamps, then to St. Louis, back to Stamps, on to San Francisco, and finally to Oakland. Maya
Angelou uses her changes in location throughout the story to mark turning points in her
childhood, many of which resulted from a trauma. While in each of these locations Angelou
experiences indescribable traumas, it is the movement from place to place that echoes her
original trauma -- the displacement and abandonment she experienced when her parents sent her
to live with her grandmother.
Maya Angelou ties the trauma of her abandonment and her relationship with her parents
to each move in and out of Stamps, Arkansas. The memoir starts soon after her parents divorce,
with their decision to send her and her brother Bailey to live with their grandmother. She is
three years old and is travelling with her four year old brother Bailey, alone, on a train from
California to Arkansas, fitted only with a tag on her wrist that read, “To whom it may concern,”
followed by their names and destination. She arrives in Stamps and is left trying to understand
why her parents sent her away and wondering what her future holds. Maya is still a child at this
point in the story and still trying to comprehend the abandonment she had to face so young. She
deals with it as any child likely would– by trying to spin it into a prettier picture than the one
before her. This coping mechanism holds up until her father arrives unexpectedly to bring her to
St. Louis to live with her mother. Angelou writes, “We, or at any rate I, had built such elaborate
fantasies about him and the illusory mother that seeing him in the flesh shredded my inventions
like a hard yank on a paper chain.” (Angelou 54) This interaction with her father, and
consequent move to St. Louis, dragged her back to reality. This was a significant first step in her
creating a more accurate and mature view of her parents, and yet resurfaced the trauma of their
initial rejection.
The events she deals with in St. Louis are life changing, strip her of childhood
innocence, and reinforce her feelings of displacement and neglect. During this time, she
continued to be wary of her relationship with her mother, writing, “If we got on her nerves or if
we were disobedient, she could always send us back to Stamps.” (Angelou 68) This continued
her struggle to find her place in the world, as she had no one to guide her. Things then worsen
when she is sexually assaulted by her mother’s boyfriend. This assault forces her to experience
the harshness of the world first hand. Following the murder of her assaulter, due to immense
guilt and fear she stops speaking altogether. Faced with a silent and traumatized child, her
mother chooses to send her back to Stamps, along with her brother. She is left reeling not only
from the rape, but from once again being thrown out by her parents, during a time when she
needed them the most.
This change in location highlights both the loneliness of her trauma, the ripple effects it
had on her life, and the community and solidarity she finds in the people of Stamps. While her
family was less tolerant of her silence, the people of Stamps accepted it. Angelou writes, “So I
was not so much forgiven as understood.” (Angelou 92) This is a first step in overcoming the
trauma of her repeated abandonment as she finds a place in Stamps to recover. She begins to
find her voice again with the help of a teacher, Mrs. Flowers, using poetry as an outlet. With this
she begins to build her own identity, and while she continues to move throughout the novel, she
begins to find a resilience and a home within herself.
Maya Angelou was forced to grow up much too fast, by her family, environment, and a
world that isn’t kind to minorities, especially black women. As the Guardian stated in a review
of Why the Caged Bird Sings,“The memoir's absorbing emotional arc traces Angelou's growth
from inferiority complex to confidence, finding the strength to tackle the puzzle of inequality
and hate.”(Guardian) Each new location in her journey to adulthood is a step in the process of
overcoming her various traumas and finding her voice– not only speaking again but demanding
her voice be heard.

Essay #1 – Bibliography:

Magazine, Smithsonian. “Published 50 Years Ago, 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'
Launched a Revolution.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 1 Jan. 2020,
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/published-50-years-ago-i-know-why-caged
-bird-sings-launched-revolution-180973719/.

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou – Review.” The Guardian,
Guardian News and Media, 17 Aug. 2013,
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/18/maya-angelou-caged-bird-review.
 Amelia Robinson
Biography - AM Cohort
Essay #2 – The Significance Trauma in Literature
Maya Angelou’s memoir details the life of her young self as she attempts to navigate the
world around her– a world that is as sexist as it is racist. This intersection of race and gender bias
in society causes the author to endure many traumatic experiences from a young age. This book
is known for how it expertly explores these complex topics like racial discrimination, fear of
abandonment, and child sexual abuse.
Jeffery C. Alexander, a professor of sociology at Yale, defines that “Trauma occurs when
members of a collective feel, they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible
marks upon their unconsciousness, marking their memories forever and changing their further
identity in fundamental and irrevocable ways.” (Alexander) Racial discrimination is something
that both Angelou and her brother (Bailey Johnson), along with the collective black population
of America, is forced to come to terms with from birth. In this memoir, Angelou explores many
different dynamics of racism ranging from the blatantly segregated South to the subtly separated
West Coast.
With her childhood in Arkansas, Angelou is subjected to dehumanization and alienation
on the basis of her skin color often. In chapter 16, a white woman in town begins to call the
author Mary instead of Marguerite because “the name’s too long…” (Angelou 107) However, the
best example of racism that the author goes through in the book is in chapter 24. The young girl
is forced to travel to the next town over in order to have her cavities treated because there was
only one white dentist in Stamps who refused to treat her– “...I’d rather stick my hand in a dogs
mouth than a nigger’s.” (Angelou 189)
Angelou must navigate coming to age and forming her identity in the turmoil of being
degraded by society. The pain sticks with her into her later life and she becomes insecure and
demoralized. “If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her
displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat. It is an unnecessary insult.”
(Angelou 4)
At the age of three and four, the author/narrator and her brother are sent away via train to
their Grandmother's house in Stamps, Arkansas. “Our parents had decided to put an end to their
calamitous marriage, and Father shipped us home to his mother.” (Angelou 5) In Stamps, the
children grew up in an overall nurturing household. However, the pain of absent parents comes
to manifest in both children through the feeling of emptiness as they grow up. Initially, they felt
resentment for being abandoned by their parents. “The gifts opened the door to questions that
neither of us wanted to ask. Why did they send us away? and What did we do so wrong?”
(Angelou 52-53) In this chapter, their parents sent presents on Christmas for the first time. This
led Angelou and her brother to ask these questions of themselves; and being unable to process an
answer, they decide to rip the gifted doll apart.
In the following chapters, the children are reunited with their parents. Their father brings
them to St. Louis to live with their mother. In this time, they came to fear being left once again.
The threat of getting cast aside hung over the children's heads constantly, resulting in growing
seeds of fear and doubt within them. They are sent back to Stamps after the authors sexual
assualt and subsiquently move back in with their mother, in San Francisco, later as they enter
their teen years. Both Angelou and her brother were left with a longing for parental love and a
fear of abandonment due to the unstable family circumstances they both grew up in.
As mentioned before, the author and her brother were sent back to Stamps, Arkansas,
shortly after Angelou’s sexual assault occurs in St. Louis. She had been sexual abused on three
seperate occasions by her mothers partner, Mr. Freeman. Being only eight years old at the time,
not old enough to even understand the concept of sex or sexual intimacy, the author is unable to
process this immense trauma. The readers are shown the young girl trying to make sense of
events several times in the preceding chapters, “Could I tell her now? The terrible pain assured
me that I couldn’t. What he did to me, and what I allowed, must have been very bad if God let
me hurt so much.” (Angelou 81)
In the following chapter, after the author’s family discovers what had happened, the eight
year old is forced to stand in court. She is met only with belittlement by the judge and jury– no
justice was even achieved by law enforcement by the end of the hellish proceedings. In the end,
Mr. Freeman is murdered, leaving Angelou to believe that her appearance in court is what killed
him. She is unable to understand what is happening and why it is happening so she internalizes
the pain. “Self-blame, while shame-producing and intensely painful, is actually quite adaptive…
It makes a person feel more in control… And that creates a sense of order out of the chaos the
world has become.” (Steinberg)
Maya Angelou’s book is much more than a memoir. It can serve as a commentary on
cultural experiences of black women in America. Black women face a disorportionate risk of
experiencing sexual abuse. One in every four are sexually abused before the age of 18. (Barlow)
The reason why the accurate portrayal of trauma in literature is important is because those of a
collective identity can share and relate to each other's mutual trauma in solidarity. The author’s
ability to expertly and gracefully delve into these deeply complex experiences is what makes this
book so relatable and gripping for the readers. Moreover, it isn’t just trauma that she is able to
write about so well, but also topics like religion.

Essay #2 Bibliography:

Adhikary, Ramesh Prasad. “Gender and racial trauma in Angelou's I Know Why The Caged

Bird Sings | AFRREV LALIGENS: An International Journal of Language, Literature

and Gender Studies.” African Journals Online, 28 April 2020,

https://www.ajol.info/index.php/laligens/article/view/195309. Accessed 30 November

2021.
Alexander, Jeffrey C. “Toward a Theory of Cultural Trauma.” UC_Alexander (E).qxd,

https://content.ucpress.edu/title/9780520235953/9780520235953_chapone.pdf.

Accessed 30 November 2021.

Angelou, Maya. I Know why the Caged Bird Sings. Ballantine Books, 2009.

Barlow, Jameta Nicole. “Black women, the forgotten survivors of sexual assault.” American

Psychological Association, February 2020,

https://www.apa.org/pi/about/newsletter/2020/02/black-women-sexual-assault. Accessed

30 November 2021.

Steinberg, Jennie. “Why Sexual Assault Survivors Blame Themselves.” Through the Woods

Therapy Center, 27 October 2017,

https://www.throughthewoodstherapy.com/sexual-assault-survivors-blame/. Accessed 5

December 2021.
 Jackson King
Biography - AM Cohort

Essay #3 – Religion’s role in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Throughout history, “religion has been an instrument of liberation and an instrument of
coercion” (Yale University 2021). This stays true in Maya Angelou’s memoir, I Know Why the
Caged Bird Sings, with religion carrying a huge role; it binded communities and answered
questions, for good or for not. Through the revivalist meeting, how Maya dealt with the sexual
assault, and young Angelou’s favorite text, it was shown that religion is more harmful than it
isn’t.
The annual revival meeting did no less than point out religion’s flaws. Every year the
people of Stamps would come together and pray. Everyone would be assured that their actions
and good deeds would not go unrecognized. The point was to tell everyone to “bear up under
this life of toils and cares, because a blessed home awaited them in the far-off bye and
bye”(129). This mindset that religion carried was so harmful. It told people of color to stay
compliant with a racist system because they were going to heaven. There would be far from
much progress in making society an equitable place if that was truly followed.
Moving forward, the guilt Maya carried with her after the sexual assault shed light on
religion’s imperfections. After relocating to St. Louis to live with her mother Vivien, she was
introduced to Mr. Freeman, Vivien’s boyfriend. It would soon be found out how awful of a man
he was when he sexual assaulted and abused 8 year old Maya multiple times; eventually being
convicted of only one count of rape.When face to face with a judge, she was asked if he had
done anything before, knowing he has done more, she still lied. “Everyone in the court knew
that the answer had to be No. Everyone except Mr. Freeman and me. I looked at his heavy face
trying to look as if he would have liked me to say No. I said No”(85). She thought that if she
told the truth her family would have disowned her. In her mind, she was unholy and sinned
because she believed she didn’t speak up fast enough. Clearly Christianity was doing no good in
helping Angelou heal. It spred people apart rather than bring them together.
Even more, Maya’s longing for belonging and Deuteronomy only highlight the defects of
religion. It was another Sunday; to Angelou, that meant church. She already had trouble feeling
like she belonged, and it was especially prevalent sitting in that place of worship. She didn’t like
the reverend, he was reading Deuteronomy. “Deuteronomy was my favorite book in the Bible.
The laws were so absolute, so clearly set down, that I knew if a person truly wanted to avoid
hell, and brimstone, and being roasted forever in the devil’s fire, all she had to do was memorize
Deuteronomy and its teaching, word for word”(38). Some parts of organized religion were made
to herd people like sheep, and this part is one of them. Maya had already felt like she stuck out
too much; through her eyes, she conformed through Christianity. Deuteronomy was
straightforward and very accessible to her. But, it’s only doing was making people complacent
and docile.
 Angelou’s memoir was chock-full of experiences with religion, but often not great ones.
It’s inclusion in her early life seemed to only suppress her and the near community. Christianity
played a large part in the socialization of the people around her, it does more harm than good.
What’s more, her marvelous use of style in her storytelling made her writing the workings of a
genius.

Essay #3 Bibliography:

Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Ballantine Books, 1969.

“Religion in Context.” Religion in Context | Department of History,

https://history.yale.edu/undergraduate/regions-and-pathways/religion-context#:~:text=Re

ligion%20has%20been%20an%20instrument%20of%20liberation%20and%20an%20ins

trument%20of%20coercion.&text=Religions%20have%20been%20a%20basic,%2C%2

0the%20arts%2C%20and%20technology.
 Charles Freiburger
Biography - AM Cohort
Essay #4 – Style Analysis
Maya Angelou uses various literary devices to convey her memoir’s message. Dialogue,
humor, juxtapositions, and poetic description all contribute to the whole of the book.
Angelou uses dialogue to show the importance and character of her community. In the
eighteenth chapter, she describes her community in the traveling Revival Church. ‘“As I
understand it, charity vaunteth not itself. Is not puffed up.” He blew himself up with a deep
breath to give us the picture of what Charity was not. “Charity don’t go around saying ‘I give
you food and I give you clothes and by rights you ought to thank me.” The congregation knew
whom he was talking about and voiced agreement with his analysis. “Tell the truth, Lord.”’ She
chose to use dialogue to demonstrate the general feelings of her community as well as the
preacher’s tone. Little sentences in between dialogue add to the reader’s image of, in this
instance, the preacher and congregation. Humor is visible in her dialogue and writing.
While there are themes of segregation, trauma, and sadness in the book, there is also
humor, justice, and happiness. In chapter sixteen, Angelou recalled her experience working for
Mrs. Cullinan, a wealthy white lady. Mrs. Cullinan thought Margaret was too long of a name, so
she decided to just call her Mary. That alone highlighted the segregation and how Angelou’s
community was treated by white folk. She covers this material with her humourful and
victorious revolt against Mrs. Cullinan. She devised a plan with Bailey to break Mrs. Cullinan’s
mom’s china from Virginia. After she shattered the china, Mrs. Cullinan yelled, ‘“Her name’s
Margaret, god damn it, her name’s Margaret!”’ And Angelou’s finishing line, “I left the front
door wide open so all the neighbors could hear. Mrs. Cullinan was right about one thing. My
name wasn’t Mary.” The chapter demonstrated segregation, a serious issue in her life with
justified humor which has the reader feel a heavy message with a light tone.
Angelou uses poetic description to capture the environment that she grew up in. Being
primarily a poet, she has a very unique and descriptive writing style. In the first chapter, she
describes the customers in the grandmother’s grocery store before going to work picking cotton.
“In those tender mornings the Store was full of laughter, joking, boasting, and bragging. One
man was going to pick two hundred pounds of cotton, and another three hundred, even the
children were promising to bring home fo’ bits and six bits. The sound of the empty cotton
sacks dragging over the floor and the murmurs of waking people were sliced by the cash
register as we rang up the five-cent sales… Brought back to the Store, the pickers would step
out of the backs of trucks and fold down, dirt-disappointed, to the ground. No matter how much
they had picked, it wasn’t enough. Their wages wouldn’t even get them out of debt to my
grandmother, not to mention the staggering bill that was waiting on them at the white
commissary downtown.” On that page, she set up a juxtaposition of happiness to sadness which
served multiple purposes. It demonstrated how the progression of the workers’ day went, it
demonstrated the issue of poverty in her community, and it demonstrated the character of her
community. Within that, she used her poetic expertise to convey her message further by creating
a picture for the reader.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a book full of description, a book full of imagery, a
book full of pain, and a book full of joy. Throughout the book, Angelou is covering serious
trauma and American issues through the voice of an aware kid. Juxtapositions, poetic
description, humor, and dialogue all contribute to her depiction of these topics.

Essay #4 Bibliography:

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Analysis -

Literary Devices and Poetic Devices.” Literary Devices, 27 Nov. 2019,

https://literarydevices.net/i-know-why-the-caged-bird-sings/.

Angelou, Maya. I Know why the Caged Bird Sings. Ballantine Books, 2009.

Barlow, Jameta Nicole. “Black women, the forgotten survivors of sexual assault.” American

Psychological Association, February 2020,

https://www.apa.org/pi/about/newsletter/2020/02/black-women-sexual-assault. Accessed

30 November 2021.
 GG Mormorunni
Biography - AM Cohort

Essay #1 - Location (Rough Draft)

Focus in on the community and the effects it had on her development

● Relationships with her parents (-absentee/abandonment)

● Her grandmother (figure to look up to, authority in her life)
● Her brother (idolize, only person she feels she can talk to for a long time)
● Religion (the church and how it shapes her relationships with her town)
● The poverty and isolation of Stamps brings a close sense of community (She felt
understood for the first time after her rape there)
● There is a strength in how the people relate to each the (shared trauma and this sense of
togetherness)
● Stamps: race relations play a big part in this town with segregation still rampant, that
sculpts her view of the world
● The move to the city with her mother brought a new world and new culture, broke her
community up and brought with it trauma and fear of rejection
● Moving back, finding community in Stamps but being abandoned once more.
● Forced to move in with her mother Vivian in LA
● Then once again moves to Oakland
● Ties into trauma essay Amelia is writing (Each move causes or is caused by a different
trauma in her life) (Ex. Mr. Freedman, the racism her grandmother witnesses, her
parents divorce and abandonment of her)

In the memoir, Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelo uses poetic and stylistic writing
to guide the reader through the effects trauma, poverty, and racism had on her coming of age.
---- more analysis: “...and in turn, how this affects the world today.” (group input)

In the memoir, Maya Angelo uses her changes in location throughout the story to mark
turning points in her childhood.
---and… ?? emotions that go along with it? Community tie in?

The memoir starts with Maya Angelo being left in Stamps, Arkansas by her parents.
 Amelia Robinson
Biography - AM Cohort
Essay #2 – Trauma (Rough Draft)
Maya Angelou’s book explores the experiences of a young black girl in the 1930’s and
40’s. The author details the life of her young self as she attempts to navigate the world around
her– a world that is both racist and sexist. This intersection of race and gender bias in society
causes the author to endure many traumatic experiences from a young age. This book is known
for how it expertly explores these complex topics like fear of abandonment, racial
discrimination, and child sexual abuse.
At the age of three, the author/narrator and her brother, Bailey, are sent away via train to
their Grandmother's house in Stamps, Arkansas. This is due to the divorce of their parents “add
quote”. They grow up in an overall nurturing household but the pain of absent parents manifests
in both children through the feeling of emptiness. At first there is resentment for being
abandoned and once they meet their parents and go to live with their mother they come to fear
being left once again. With the threat of getting cast aside hanging over the children's heads,
there grows the seeds of fear and doubt within them. They are left with a longing for parental
love and a fear of abandonment due to the trauma of the unstable family circumstances they
experienced.
Jeffery C. Alexander, a professor of sociology at Yale, defines that “Trauma occurs
when members of a collective feel, they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves
indelible marks upon their unconsciousness, marking their memories forever and changing their
further identity in fundamental and irrevocable ways” Racial discrimination was something that
both Angelou and her brother, along with the collective black population of America, is forced
to come to terms with from birth. She is dehumanized and alienated on the basis of her skin
color throughout her life which leaves her traumatized. Maya Angelou must navigate coming to
age and forming her identity in the turmoil of being degraded by society. The result being the
pain sticks with her into her later life and she becomes insecure and demoralized.

Those of a collective identity can share and relate to each other's mutual trauma in
solidarity. “...Members of collectivities define their solidary relationships in ways that, in
principle, allow them to share the sufferings of others.” (Alexander) Maya Angelou’s book is
much more than a memoir. It can serve as a commentary on cultural experiences of black
women in America. Black women face a disorportionate risk of experiencing sexual abuse. One
in every four are sexually abused before the age of 18. (National Center on Violence Against
Women in the Black Community) Her ability to expertly and gracefully delve into these deeply
complex experiences is what makes this book so relatable and gripping for the readers.
Moreover it isn’t just trauma that she is able to write about so well, but also topics like religion.
 Jackson King
Biography - AM Cohort

Essay #3 - Religion (Rough draft)

Essay theme: Religion’s effect on communities/individuals

Characters (Stamps):
Maya
Bailey
Momma
Uncle Willie

Context/Background:
- Stamps, Arkansas 1930s
- As a person of color, you’d have to watch your every move because the
environment was so blatantly racist. One could bump into a white person and be
killed for that.
- Poorer area
- Heavily segregated

Examples
1. Revivalist meeting shows that religion can herd the public to their will (stopping African
Americans from taking action because of the afterlife)
2. Provides unhealthy guilt, you can’t comfortably make mistskes and learn from them, OR
DEAL WITH TRAUMA (Maya’s sexual assault)
3. It provides rules that are too strict to take risks and make change (deuteronomy being
Maya’s favorite because of the strict rules, Maya not being able to say something as
simple as “by the way”
 Charles Freiburger
Biography - AM Cohort
Essay #4 – Style Analysis (Rough Draft)
Maya Angelou uses various literary devices to convey her memoir’s message. Dialogue,
humour, juxtapositions, and poetic description all contribute to the whole of the book.
Angelou uses dialogue to show the importance and character of her community. In the
eighteenth chapter, she describes her community in the traveling Revival Church. ‘“As I
understand it, charity vaunteth not itself. Is not puffed up.” He blew himself up with a deep
breath to give us the picture of what Charity was not. “Charity don’t go around saying ‘I give
you food and I give you clothes and by rights you ought to thank me.” The congregation knew
whom he was talking about and voiced agreement with his analysis. “Tell the truth, Lord.”’ She
chose to use dialogue to demonstrate the general feelings of her community as well as the
preacher’s tone. Little sentences in between dialogue add to the reader’s image of, in this
instance, the preacher and congregation. Humor is visible in her dialogue and writing.
While there are themes of segregation, trauma, and sadness in the book, there is also
humour, justice, and happiness. In chapter sixteen, Angelou recalled her experience working for
Mrs. Cullinan, a wealthy white lady. Mrs. Cullinan thought Margaret was too long of a name, so
she decided to just call her Mary. That alone highlighted the segregation in how Angelou’s
community was treated by white folk. She covers this material with her humourful and
victorious revolt against Mrs. Cullinan. She devised a plan with Bailey to break Mrs. Cullinan’s
mom’s china from Virginia. After she shattered the china, Mrs. Cullinan yelled, ‘“Her name’s
Margaret, god damn it, her name’s Margaret!”’ And Angelou’s finishing line, “I left the front
door wide open so all the neighbors could hear. Mrs. Cullinan was right about one thing. My
name wasn’t Mary.” The chapter demonstrated segregation, a serious issue in her life with
justified humour.
Angelou uses poetic description to capture the environment that she grew up in. Being
primarily a poet, she has a very unique and descriptive writing style. In the first chapter she
describes the customers in the grandmother’s grocery store before going to work picking cotton.
“In those tender mornings the Store was full of laughter, joking, boasting, and bragging. One
man was going to pick two hundred pounds of cotton, and another three hundred, even the
children were promising to bring home fo’ bits and six bits. The sound of the empty cotton
sacks dragging over the floor and the murmurs of waking people were sliced by the cash
register as we rang up the five-cent sales… Brought back to the Store, the pickers would step
out of the backs of trucks and fold down, dirt-disappointed, to the ground. No matter how much
they had picked, it wasn’t enough. Their wages wouldn’t even get them out of debt to my
grandmother, not to mention the staggering bill that was waiting on them at the white
commissary downtown.” In that page, she set up a juxtaposition of happiness to sadness which
served multiple purposes. It demonstrated how the progression of the workers’ day went, it
demonstrated the issue of poverty in her community, and it demonstrated the character of her
community. Within that, she used her poetic expertise to convey her message further by creating
a picture for the reader.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a book full of description, a book full of imagery, a
book full of pain, and a book full of joy. Throughout the book, Angelou is covering serious
trauma and American issues through the voice of an aware kid. Juxtapositions, poetic
description, humour, and dialogue all contribute to her style.