I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Angelou, Maya. I know why the caged bird sings. (1969). New York: Random House, 281 pp.

Autobiography, National Book Award NOMINEE, 1970 -- close, but no cigar, Maya!

This novel recounts Angelou's life from age eight to 16, turbulent years during which she and her brother, Bailey, were shuffled back and forth between parents in St. Louis and California and their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. It explores the impact of many significant figures in Angelou's life, including her stalwartly religious grandmother, her neighbor, Mrs. Flowers, who gave her books, and even the "powhitetrash" of Stamps, who served as a form of racial opposition she could push against to become better. It also speaks of Angelou's difficulty finding her niche as an awkwardly tall, un-pretty, educated, independent Black girl. She speaks directly about some of the more traumatic experiences of her youth, included being raped at eight by her mother's boyfriend and later being assaulted by a girlfriend of her father. The plot is fairly winding and therefore a bit difficult to summarize.

In employing this sort of plot structure, Angelou allows her to look in depth at scenes and situations that make statements about herself, her family members, racial pride and predjudice, the South, and the feeling of being Black in America during an era still ridden with the vestiges of slavery. Her point is not so much to tell her own story but to tell her story as a way of representing the wider experience of all Blacks during this time period--to show the horrors they endured but also their dignity and perseverence in enduring them. In this regard, she is extremely successful, and the reader comes away with a greater respect for Angleou's trials in light of the hostile environment she lived in, one defined by the practices of racial segregation and inequality. The characters are memorable, due in equal part to their inherent characteristics and to Angelou's deft description. This is an important book to read because it addresses adolescent experiences like self-doubt and feelings of displacement as well as gender and racial discrimination. It also goes well with aspects of American history, and in the South it is perhaps most important because it shows another dimension of typically-celebrated southern farming culture, with its genteel White aristocratic affluence.

I think this book could work well as a read aloud. It moves a little slowly at times, which might cause students to lose interest if read on their own, but it features a lot of rich, lyrical description and vernacular dialogue that would come alive if performed by a competent reader.

I would slate this novel as high-school level reading. The language is easy to handle, but students would need to be older in order to understand the courage of Angelou's writing as a work of ethic literature, especially for the time in which it was published. I also think the incidences of sex and abuse point to the need for a more mature audience.

I liked this book. I had heard a lot about it, and I can't say that it's exactly what I expected, but it is a finely-written work that expresses a perspective that needs to be heard. I wouldn't pick it up for pleasure reading on a rainy afternoon, but I think I would enjoy teaching it in the classroom. There are other pieces of literature that address similar themes, such as Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun" and Morrison's Sula (though I don't know if that book is taught in HS), but I think the personal nature of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings makes it perhaps a better choice than these when used for the same purpose.