Caged Bird

The only thing that has surprised me so far in this book, is how

racist people still were at that time. It is very surprising to find out

that how racist people were actually affected Maya Angelou into thinking

almost the same way others thought. For instance, in the beginning of this

book when Maya Angelou wrote about one day her waking up having blonde hair

and blue eyes and then everyone would be asking her for forgiveness just

because of that.

The Cages Of Maya Angelou Maya Angelou wrote an amazing and entertaining autobiography

titled I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, about her hard life growing up as a black girl from the

South. Among the hardships are metaphores known as "cages". "Cages" are things that keep people

from succeeding in life and being everything they want to be. Some of Maya Angelou's cages

include being black in the 1940's, and her overbearing grandmother. For myself a major "cage" is

being young. A major "cage" from Maya Angelou's youth was that she was black in a prejudice

southern town. Maya has recounted in her book the times when she was discriminated against.

When she was working for a white woman named Mrs. Viola Cullinan, she started calling Margaret,

Mary. "That's [Margaret] too long. She's Mary from now on."(pp.91) One of the most important

aspects of a person is their name. It is a great insult for someone to change your name, without your

consent, just because someone wanted too. If Maya was white Mrs. Cullinan would not have

changed her name. She did it only because of her racist friends, and attitudes. Even some of the

white s, who supposedly supported her, had hidden their racist feelings in seemingly nice remarks.

Maya conveys the words of Mr. Edward Donleavy, one of the people in the masquerade, "The

white kids were going to have a chance to become Galileos and Madame Curies and Edisons and

Gauguins, and our boys (the girls weren't included) would try to be Jesse Owens and Joe

Louises."(pp.151) Maya was forced to listen to Mr. Donleavy's stereotypes of how white children

could be thinkers, and black children can only be athletes. What was supposed to be an

encouraging speech, which Mr. Donleavy probably thought was sincere, turned out to be just

another racist and stereotypical message. Perhaps it was not so much Mr. Donleavy's fault, because

he was trying to be nice, but more of his background. Racism was the most prominent of Maya's

"cages" and it is probably due to the society and ignorant ideals. The second major cage for Maya

Angelou was that she has a very strict, religious, and overbearing grandmother. A child's guardian

be caring and strict but that guardian should not be overbearing. After coming back from Mrs.

Flowers' house bringing Bailey some cookies, Maya is disciplined by momma; "I repeated, 'I said,

Bailey by the way, Mrs. Flowers sent you-' [Momma responds] 'That's what I thought you said. Go

on and take off your dress. I'm going to get a switch."(pp.85) Maya's grandmother punishing Maya

just for using a common everyday phrase seems to be a little harsh. Maya's grandmother was trying

to raise her well, but the way she did it could have the opposite effect. Just when she was making

progress, getting out of her depression and taking a step forward with Mrs. Flowers, the