Introduction
When Random House released Caged Bird Sings in 1970, the
book was highly praised by book reviewers as one of best pieces
of literature that year. The book was nominated for a National
Book Award and received many accolades from other black and
white writers. Sidonie Ann Smith’s 1973 scholarly review of Caged
Bird Sings in the magazine Southern Humanities Review captures
the tone of what many reviewers and readers had already said
about the book: “Angelou's genius as a writer is her ability to
recapture the texture of the way of life in the texture of its idioms,
its idiosyncratic vocabulary and especially in its process of image-
making” (375). The book resonated with Smith and many other
critics because of its open and frank discussion of rape, racism,
and the struggles of a young black woman coming to terms with
her own self-identity in society.
When the book hit the stands in 1970, it had been seven
years since Martin Luther King, Jr., had given his famous “I Have a
Dream” speech before a crowd of 250,000 on the steps of the
Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., and less than a decade had
passed since the country had lost a strong civil rights supporter,
President John F. Kennedy, to gunfire at a Dallas parade. The
Voting Rights Act, which prohibited states from using literary tests
and other methods to keep blacks from voting, had passed in 1965
—the same year black activist Malcolm X was assassinated. The
black community was still mourning the loss of its other
charismatic leader, Martin Luther King, Jr., who was shot in April
1968 on the balcony of a Memphis hotel.
As African-Americans were fighting for civil rights, racial
injustice, and equality, the feminist movement was gaining
momentum. Women were pushing for equal rights, more
independence, equal pay, and the right to be heard. Women’s
activist Betty Friedan helped the women’s movement with her
1963 bestseller, The Feminine Mystique, which sparked a national
debate on the role of women as housewives. It was a historic
moment when twenty National Organization of Women leaders
disrupted hearings of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on
Constitutional Amendments in 1970 to demand that the Equal
Rights Amendment be heard by the full Congress.
In 1970 the American public was still coming to terms with
the civil rights movement and the feminist movement. Angelou’s
book brought racism to the forefront and helped the American
public understand the character and quality of black life during the
1920s and 1930s.
There were other books during this period that gave readers a
similar taste of what it was like growing up in the South, books
such as Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi and Malcolm
X’s The Autobiography of Malcolm X, but Angelou’s book did not
have the same amount of rage or biting racism the other books
had. Like Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning To Kill a
Mockingbird, published in 1960, Angelou’s book appealed to the
white reader because it did not have an angry voice and did not
hold the same grudges about slavery that the other books carried.
Though Caged Bird Sings does not hold any grudges about
slavery, it still reveals the harsh realities of segregated life in the
South that, in turn, prompted a critical fascination with the book on
several levels, she chose to write in a subtle tone about
segregation and not in an angry tone as other African-American
authors have done. One level of observation deals with the
character narration concerning the personal life of the author
during the 1920s and 1930s. One can read the story in several
ways—one way being as a historical, socio-economic narrative in
which the narrator presents African-American life in rural Arkansas
in contrast with city life in St. Louis and San Francisco.
Since its publication, critics have praised the book for its
poignant portrayal of the economic hardship and social injustices
of racism in America during the Depression.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and the autobiography
I know ‘Why the Caged Bird Sings’ is written in the
autobiographical tradition. Like most autobiographies it is written,
is in first person and is chronological. A number of critics have
classified Angelou's five volumes as autobiographical fiction and
not as autobiographies, for the apparent reason that Angelou
amplifies the autobiographical tone by using dialogue--by having
another character or characters speak to each other. The writing
techniques Angelou uses in her autobiographies are the same as
the devices used in writing fiction: vividly conceived characters and
careful development of theme, setting, plot, and language. She
follows in the tradition of many African American writers such as
Richard Wright who have written serial autobiographies. Her
autobiography spans 5 volumes and chronicles several events in
her life.
Critics have opined that autobiographies have to be a presentation
of truth, in characterization, in relationship to the world and in point
of view. Angelou has presented her life, keeping in mind people’s
interest and the fictional framework of her autobiography. But she
has faithfully recorded the times that she lived in with the fear of
the Ku Klux Klan and lynching, which form the backdrop of her
novel. She has furthered the genre of autobiography as she
comments on the events that happened in her life from an African
American female perspective. This perspective was silenced and
suppressed for centuries as only men were heard or published.
She records the triple bind of race, sex and class that she
encounters in her life. Angelou's autobiographies, documented
with historical personages and events, verify the changing
attitudes towards race and gender from 1928 to 1965. As a
woman, Angelou tells truths about all women's lives. For black
women the neglect of their histories and their literary works has
been devastating, although a change occurred in the 1970s and
1980s, when many other black women exploded into bookstores
and lecture halls, telling their stories. Angelou addresses her own
issues--about rape, marriage, talent, community, responsibility to
her son--from the perspective of an African American woman. In
so doing she introduces material not very often developed by
autobiographers, black or white.
Angelou’s work like most autobiographies is a mixture of several
literary traditions. Her work echoes the prison, slave and travel
narratives. Prison autobiography is a record of the lives of African
American activists as they fought for racial equality. These texts
document their lives in the prison and their voices are seen as
protest literature that spearheaded the movement towards
equality. Angelou's autobiographies share elements of the prison
narrative, but on a symbolic rather than an actual level. The central
image of the caged bird, presented throughout the five volumes,
represents her imprisonment within the racist structure of Stamps,
Arkansas, with the Ku Klux Klan and its unequal educational
opportunities. After she is released from Stamps, the racial
discrimination continues, but with less intensity. She becomes
aware of other forms of imprisonment--through drugs, marriage
and the economic system.
Caged Bird and the Slave Narrative
African American autobiography has its historical roots in still
another genre, the slave narrative. Through this method of
speaking and writing, slaves recalled the harrowing journey from
Africa to America and the atrocities of plantation life. The slave
narrative is structured in the form of a journey, from Africa to
America or to some other location in the African diaspora - a term
used to describe the scattering of black people during the slave
trade. Traditionally, the slave narrative traced the journey of a
slave or former slave of African descent in his/her quest for
freedom. Freedom for many narrators meant more than release
from the imprisoning system of slavery; it also meant the
opportunity to write or print their stories and at the same time
denounce the institution that had bound them.
Of the written narratives, many celebrated the achievement of
literacy--of being able to read and write--as a major theme.
Literacy was equated in the slave's mind with liberation, whereas
illiteracy was a form of bondage enforced by slave owners and
overseers.
Angelou's narrative combines two distinct characteristics of the
slave narrative: It demonstrates both the narrative of movement
-journey, and also the narrative of confinement – imprisonment, a
theme common to all imprisoned slave narrators, but having a
special significance for women, who were more concerned with the
problems of sexual exploitation, rape, loss of dignity, and forsaken
children than were male slaves because under the slave system
the nuclear family structure was discouraged or forbidden or
disrupted when a slave was sold.
Like the nineteenth-century female slave narrator, Maya Angelou
charts her journey toward autonomy. Abandoned by her parents,
raped by her mother's boyfriend, separated from her grandmother,
the young Maya is imprisoned and unable to claim her own
identity. Her journey toward self-discovery takes her from
ignorance to knowledge, from silence to speech, from racial
oppression to a liberated life, as she travels from Stamps,
Arkansas, to Accra, Ghana, and back to America (in her later
autobiographies). Her story thus echoes the course of the slave
narrative, with its movement from Africa to America, its account of
the cruelties of slavery, and its ultimate hope for emancipation.
In Caged Bird, the journey is a triangular one, almost like having a
set of three thumbtacks-- a map of the United States to represent
California and Arkansas and Missouri. If the tacks are moved as
the character Maya moves in the book, a reader can get a solid
sense of how structure operates within an autobiographical text.
Each of Angelou's autobiographies relies on movement as
equivalent to travel; the movement from journey to journey
establishes the narrative line. In recording her momentous journey
Angelou, without being directly repetitive, constantly recreates and
rewinds the structure, replaying it at different speeds and at
different volumes. The idea of movement is extensive in the
autobiographies, beginning with the denial of movement on the
first page of Caged Bird--"I didn't come to stay.”
In writing I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou chooses the
train ride from California to Arkansas to represent the beginning of
her autobiographical journey. Eugenia Collier notes that Angelou s
use of the journey is on one level an escape from an impossible
circumstance, while "on another level, each is a further step in
Maya’ s journey toward awareness" (1986, 22). Of other journeys
within the triad, the trip to St. Louis in her father's car is the most
terrible for in St. Louis she is raped by her mother's boyfriend.
Years later, in a journey to Mexico, this same father is present as
the travel patterns again assume a sinister tone. Maya, who has
never been behind the wheel of a car, maneuvers her father's car
fifty miles down the mountainside because he is too drunk to drive.
After she is stabbed by her father's girlfriend, she moves to a
vacant lot and stays with a number of multiethnic teenagers who
are also running away from unacceptable living situations. In that
particular section of the book, the sense of movement--driving,
stabbing, running, running away, bumping, yelling--becomes
overwhelming.
For Angelou, who writes a personal version of the Emancipation
Proclamation, her demoralizing childhood experiences with racial
bigotry and sexual assault are largely overcome as she continues
her efforts to be somebody-- a writer, a dancer, a nonslave.
Angelou connects herself to the slave narrative by consciously
linking herself to an African-centered tradition. Her triumph owes
much to her rediscovery of her African heritage (seen in later
volumes) and her ability to redefine herself as mother and woman.
CHARACTERISTICS OF AN AFRICAN-AMERICAN
FEMALE BILDUNGSROMAN
The transformation of a character is an important element in the
African-American female bildungsroman, the autobiography genre,
and the bildungsroman. As literary critics like Susan Gilbert have
noted, Caged Bird Sings has also been categorized as a coming-
of-age story, or bildungsroman. This terminology is German, and
means a “novel of transformation,” the growth of a character from
childhood to maturity. The bildungsroman is based on a male
literary tradition and follows specific characteristics. Four
characteristics shape a bildungsroman. First, it is “a story of a
single individual’s growth and development with in the context of a
defined social order.” Second, in order for the character to begin
his/her journey, “some form of loss or discontent must jar them at
an early stage away from the family or home setting.” Third, “the
process of maturity is long, arduous, and gradual, consisting of
repeated clashes between the protagonist's needs and desires and
the views and judgments enforced by an unbending social order.”
Fourth, “the spirit and values of the social order become manifest
in the protagonist, who is then accommodated into society. The
book ends with an assessment by the protagonist of himself and
his new place in that society” (Hirsch 294-95). Unfortunately, the
characteristics of the bildungsroman focus mainly on the male
literary tradition and do not include females. As female authors
continue to write books that have the same characteristics as the
male bildungsroman, it is obvious that critics of the genre needed
to expand the definition in order to include women.
We can chart the female bildungsroman genre back to the
eighteenth century when books that promoted moral instruction
and survival tactics in the context of a patriarchal society, were
once read among the educated, middle-class, society women. The
break in this traditional reading came when the feminist movement,
which was progressing during the 1950s and 1960s, set forth an
outlook of how women wanted to define their roles within society.
With this emergence, women no longer wanted to be second-class
citizens; to be independent, to grow spiritually, and to have their
own identity. It was at this time that the female bildungsroman
gained stature. Women found a voice through feminism and
began to change the traditional male literary conventions by
creating two narrative styles.
The African-American female bildungsroman has four distinct
characteristics similar to the female bildungsroman, but it is unique
in that it includes the element of race. In order to understand why
Caged Bird Sings fits so well in the category of the African-
American female bildungsroman, we must define get an
understanding of what makes up this focused sub-genre.
First, there is the awakening, when the character becomes
increasingly aware that she is not the blue-eyed blonde so coveted
by society and begins to question her African-American heritage.
This leads to the character questioning her value as a human
being and the social status of her race. Second, the main
character gains self-awareness through her relationships with a
network of African-American women, who guide and support her in
becoming self-reliant in a patriarchal society. This network
provides the character with moral guidance in the face of racial
and gender adversity. Third, the character explores her feminine
values and begins redefining her identity as she transitions into
adulthood. Finally, as the character reaches a point of maturity
and independence, she concludes her journey of self-discovery.
The character reaches this pinnacle with the help of the women
who have guided her.
By taking these specific characteristics of the African-American
female bildungsroman and analyzing the character of Marguerite
Johnson in terms, one can see that Angelou traced the “linear
structure of the male bildungsroman” and created an “awakening”
of the character. Marguerite Johnson did not make this journey
alone; however, Angelou also awakens the community of women
that help guide Marguerite Johnson along on her journey by
making them predominant characters within the text (Feng 11-12).
By giving voices to this community of women, Maya Angelou
sacrifices the male characters by making them weaker than their
counterparts and by not giving them an overall influence on
Marguerite Johnson’s journey into maturity.
In Caged Bird Sings, Marguerite also has a series of awakenings
about what it means to be a black female in a segregated and
racist patriarchal society. But Marguerite did not make her
transition into womanhood alone. Again, a network of women, a
key element of the African-American female bildungsroman guided
her. But Angelou’s story centers not only on the struggles
associated with Marguerite’s development as a woman but on her
development as an African-American woman. Marguerite must
learn to cope with her second-class status as an African-American
as well as her inferior status as a woman.
In creating Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou does two specific
things: she concludes her coming-of-age story with the birth of her
son, and she leaves the door open on this book to continue her
life’s journey, a decision that results in five additional books. These
five books, considered part of a serial autobiography, show how
the character continues to mature into a woman, a mother, and
finally an artist. This specific characteristic of the African-American
female bildungsroman is a very important but controversial aspect
of the path that a character must take in order to reach a point of
maturity. For Marguerite Johnson, the journey was very clear. She
chooses to have sex out of wedlock in order to explore her
femininity and relieve fears that she may be a lesbian. She
decides to have a baby, although that decision may not have been
acceptable in her closed society. And finally, she brings a difficult
relationship with her mother to a more loving and mature level in
order to build a stronger bond. All of these coming-of-age aspects
give the character a vantage point to look at life in a different way,
even though critics such as Tischler do not believe it leads to a
good Christian lifestyle. While other critics such as McPherson
and Buss feel that the realization of self-discovery that Marguerite
goes through is a normal transcendence into femininity,
motherhood, and womanhood. But in order for Marguerite to move
ahead with her transformation she must keep a sense of
independence and spirituality—an important aspect as the
character tries to find out who she is as an African-American
female.
Thematic Issues in Caged Bird
The literary theme depends for its effect on the use of repetition. In
Maya Angelou’s autobiographical series many different themes
appear and reappear. The major themes in I Know Why the Caged
Bird Sings are motherhood, imprisonment, and rape.
Probably the most consistent thematic issue found in Angelou's
autobiographies is motherhood. During much of Maya s childhood
her own mother is absent, and her conflicting feelings for Vivian
Baxter are transferred to others, especially to Annie Henderson.
Although Maya does not become a mother until the end of the
autobiography, for most of the book she is concerned with the
parenting qualities of Momma Henderson; her brother Bailey; her
father, Bailey Sr.; her mother, Vivian Baxter; and other characters
who either nurture her or deny her the mothering she craves:
people who help her read; who clothe her; who show her the
secrets of urban life. While Maya s primary identification in Caged
Bird is that of a daughter or granddaughter, these roles become
secondary at the end of the book, when she becomes a black
mother.
The theme of motherhood is one of the central ideas in
contemporary literature by black women: There is the mother who
murders her infant in Toni Morrison Beloved or the mother who
strives for decent housing in Lorraine Hansberry A Raisin in the
Sun ( 1959). According to Daryl C. Dance, the black mother is " a
figure of courage, strength, and endurance," a "Madonna" who has
brought her race out of bondage and given them life ( 1979, 131).
Mary Burgher writes that black women autobiographers have
redeemed black motherhood from the myths of breeder and
matriarch--always having babies, always being domineering--by
revealing themselves as women who are both mothers and
visionaries. Angelou and other autobiographers are "consistently
expanding motherhood into a creative and personally fulfilling role"
( 1979, 115).
A second major theme in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is
imprisonment. Maya constantly feels caged, unable to get away
from the homemade dresses she must wear to church, unable to
escape the reality of her blackness. She is imprisoned by her job
for Mrs. Cullinan and by her limited opportunities in a segregated
school system. There are several painful scenes where she and
Bailey, trapped in the church service, are conquered by hysterical
laughter. At times Maya urinates at her pew as if in defiance of the
restrictions imposed on her young body. She is trapped, too, by
the bigotry of Stamps, whose town fathers demand that she and all
African Americans live in only one section of town and attend only
those schools in their part town. Imprisoned inside her body, Maya
believes that a "cruel fairy stepmother" has wickedly transformed
her from a blonde child to a dark one.
The theme of imprisonment is expressed in the title I Know Why
the Caged Bird Sings, which Angelou takes from Paul Lawrence
Dunbar 1896 poem, "Sympathy," a poem about a caged bird who
beats his wings against the bars. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese writes
eloquently about Angelou's image of the cage: "Unbreakable bars
closed black communities in upon themselves, denying both the
communities and the individuals who composed them access to
the surrounding white world.... The cages constrained but did not
stifle them" ( 1990, 221-22). The caged bird, a symbol for the
chained slave, frequently reappears in Angelou's writings,
especially in The Heart of a Woman.
Most critics who write about the title tend to underplay the verb
sings, clothe her; who show her the secrets of urban life. While
Maya’s primary identification in Caged Bird is that of a daughter or
granddaughter, these roles become secondary at the end of the
book, when she becomes a black mother.
The theme of motherhood is one of the central ideas in
contemporary literature by black women: There is the mother who
murders her infant in Toni Morrison Beloved or the mother who
strives for decent housing in Lorraine Hansberry A Raisin in the
Sun ( 1959). According to Daryl C. Dance, the black mother is " a
figure of courage, strength, and endurance," a "Madonna" who has
brought her race out of bondage and given them life ( 1979, 131).
Maya Burgher writes that black women autobiographers have
redeemed black motherhood from the myths of breeder and
matriarch--always having babies, always being domineering--by
revealing themselves as women who are both mothers and
visionaries. Angelou and other autobiographers are "consistently
expanding motherhood into a creative and personally fulfilling role"
( 1979, 115).
A second major theme in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is
imprisonment. Maya constantly feels caged, unable to get away
from the homemade dresses she must wear to church, unable to
escape the reality of her blackness. She is imprisoned by her job
for Mrs. Cullinan and by her limited opportunities in a segregated
school system. There are several painful scenes where she and
Bailey, trapped in the church service, are conquered by hysterical
laughter. At times Maya urinates at her pew as if in defiance of the
restrictions imposed on her young body. She is trapped, too, by
the bigotry of Stamps, whose town fathers demand that she and all
African Americans live in only one section of town and attend only
those schools in their part town. Imprisoned inside her body, Maya
believes that a "cruel fairy stepmother" has wickedly transformed
her from a blonde child to a dark one.
The theme of imprisonment is expressed in the title I Know Why
the Caged Bird Sings, which Angelou takes from Paul Lawrence
Dunbar 1896 poem, "Sympathy," a poem about a caged bird who
beats his wings against the bars. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese writes
eloquently about Angelou's image of the cage: "Unbreakable bars
closed black communities in upon themselves, denying both the
communities and the individuals who composed them access to
the surrounding white world.... The cages constrained but did not
stifle them" (1990, 221-22). The caged bird, a symbol for the
chained slave, frequently reappears in Angelou's writings,
especially in The Heart of a Woman.
Most critics who write about the title tend to underplay the verb
sings, the last word and the one that creates an upward mood. But
sings suggests the survival of African Americans through the
spiritual, a form examined in Chapter 2. As it is the nature of the
caged bird to sing for its supper, so it is said to be the black
person's nature to make music while in bondage--to lift every voice
and sing; to sing in praise of the Lord. In Dunbar's poem, for
instance, the bruised bird sings a prayer to God that he might be
released.
Although Angelou develops the singing aspects of I Know Why the
Caged Bird Sings in her second and third volumes, she only hints
at the possibilities of joyful song in the first book. For like a
songless bird, Maya gives up all singing, all sound, during the five
years that follow her rape. For five years she is mute, locked in a
speechless body, as she has willed it. She is liberated from her
caged silence only after Mrs. Flowers helps her release her voice.
Listening to Mrs. Flowers read aloud, Maya describes the woman's
voice as singing: "Her voice slid in and curved down through and
over the words. She was nearly singing" ( 84 ).
A cage, as Georgia Douglas Johnson warns us, restrains not only
the black body but also the female black body; a black woman is
doubly threatened because of her race and her gender. The third
theme, rape, is a concept so forceful that it overwhelms the
autobiography, even though it is presented fairly briefly in the text.
The theme involves Maya's two sexual experiences with Mr.
Freeman. Both scenes are couched in metaphors, allowing her to
describe her pain without having to directly speak/write about what
she feels. Unable to comprehend the reality of her situation, she
invents comparisons that sound like dirty jokes because they really
are dirty jokes, played by a frustrated father substitute on an
innocent girl.
Maya compares his "thing" to a "brown ear of corn" ( 61 ). It feels
pulpy like the "inside of a freshly killed chicken" ( 61 ). In both
instances she compares what she is unsure of, the penis, to
objects familiar to her rural upbringing--to corn and to chicken--as
if trying to make the strangeness go away and the experience
along with it.
The most famous example of this kind of comparison is the camel/
needle metaphor. Angelou writes: "The act of rape on an eight-
year-old body is a matter of the needle giving because the camel
can't" ( 65 ). Mary Vermillion (1992), in her reading of the
metaphor, associates the passage with the Biblical parable that it
is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a
rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven. Angelou's "needle" is
also a metaphor for how rape must feel to a vulnerable child. If
Maya's vagina (her body) is like a needle's eye and Mr. Freeman's
penis is like a camel, then there is a repulsive physical implication
behind the metaphor. Angelou has found the appropriate image to
convey the horror of a child's flesh being ripped by an enlarged,
thrusting penis. The child (needle) gives because the rapist
(camel) cannot.
Spirituals and the black church
Another prominent influence on Angelou’s work is the Negro
spiritual, a musical form that originated during the "Great Revival"
meetings of the early nineteenth century. This music grew from
Protestant camp meetings that were attended by both whites and
blacks. The Negro spiritual frequently contains the dual motifs of
travel and race--of traveling to freedom and escaping the racial
bondage of slavery.
Many scholars who have studied the African American Church
agree that it is the institution that has had the greatest impact on
the African American community. Many slaves were first
introduced to Christianity on the southern plantations. The church
was a source of comfort and inspiration to them as they endured
the horrifying conditions of slavery. The institution continues to
provide solace to African Americans in the face of racism,
violence, and poverty and has been a unifying force in the
community.
Certainly the church was a major force in Maya Angelou's life in
the rural community of Stamps. It is no accident that the opening
scene of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings takes place in church.
Indeed, Maya and her family seem to have devoted a great deal of
time to church and church-related activities. Maya's grandmother is
fiercely religious, and her religious convictions are a sustaining
force in her life. As a Mother of the Church, "an honorific title
usually reserved for the wife of the founder or for the oldest and
most respected members" ( Lincoln and Mamiya, 275), Momma's
religious authority is recognized. She begins each day on her
knees in prayer and carefully instructs her grandchildren in the
ways of the church, requiring strict observance of Biblical
commandments. When Maya innocently begins a sentence with
"by the way," she is punished for taking the Lord's name in vain,
because Jesus is "the Way." The incident is illustrative of
Momma's profound, even extreme, religious devotion and her
determination to inculcate her religious ideals in her grandchildren.
In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Angelou appears to be more
critical of the church's failure to concern itself with the here and
now. Her lengthy description of a revival meeting emphasizes the
otherworldly orientation of the preacher, who takes as the text of
his sermon "The least of these," and the contented reaction of the
congregation, who believe that "all the Negroes had to do
generally, and those at the revival especially, was bear up under
this life of toil and cares, because a blessed home awaited them in
the faroff bye and bye" (108-9). Angelou's account suggests that
she considers the preacher's message that African Americans
should endure and resign themselves to their lot in life to be an
inadequate response to their plight.
Emotionalism and the black church
An example of emotionalism in the African American church can
be seen in the groans, shouts, and shrieks of the congregation in
the regular church service described in the preceding document.
Angelou's amusing description of a service at her church suggests
that individual members of the congregation can also be catalysts
for extreme behavior. She describes Sister Monroe, who, on a
particular Sunday, "gets the spirit" and pursues the minister up
onto the altar, screaming and grabbing at his clothing (32). Other
members of the congregation are similarly inspired, and the
incident concludes with the minister, deacon, and chairman of the
usher board on the floor following cries, punches, and other
physical contact. This incident is a prelude to a second incident on
a different Sunday when Sister Monroe assaults a visiting
preacher, knocking out his false teeth. Sister Monroe's
emotionalism was not unusual in African American churches.
Music
Religious music sustains Maya's family inside and outside the
church. When Momma is taunted by the powhitetrash children (see
Chapter 2), she quietly sings several hymns, drawing strength from
the music in much the same way that slaves were comforted by
spirituals.
Historically, music has been an important feature of the religious
expression of African Americans. The spirituals originated with the
slaves and that, like the sermons, the focus was otherworldly:
Far from his native land and customs, despised by those among
whom he lived, experiencing the pang of the separation of loved
ones on the auction block, knowing the hard task master, feeling
the lash, the Negro seized Christianity, the religion of
compensations in the life to come for the ills suffered in the present
existence, the religion which implied the hope that in the next world
there would be a reversal of conditions, of rich man and poor man,
of proud and meek, of master and slave. The result was a body of
songs voicing all the cardinal virtues of Christianity -- patience --
forbearance -- love -- faith -- and hope -- through a necessarily
modified form of African music. The Negro took complete refuge in
Christianity, and the Spirituals were literally forged of sorrow in the
heat of religious fervor. (20)
Angelou notes the common themes present in the songs sung at
the revival and the blues heard on the way home: "A stranger to
the music could not have made a distinction between the songs
sung a few minutes before and those being danced to in the gay
house by the railroad tracks. All asked the same questions. How
long, oh God? How long?" (111).
The African American Family and Other Role
Models
THE GRANDMOTHER, MOTHER, AND
MATRIARCHY
The importance of family and of other influential people in Maya
Angelou's journey toward self-acceptance and independence cannot
be overstated. From her neighbor Mrs. Flowers's healing
intervention after Maya is raped to her brother Bailey's
unconditional love, Maya is fortunate to have the love and support
of those around her. Angelou notes the significant role played by
extended family and friends in her upbringing. Pointing out that she
was raised by her grandmother and her Uncle Willie up to the age of
thirteen, she adds: "But the people around us also helped raise us.
They watched us when we were out of the house. They knew that
Mamma was getting up in age and Uncle Willie could not get around
easily, so they watched us and reported our actions to Mamma and
Uncle Willie" (Angelou, Interview with RandallTsuruta, 4-5).
Perhaps no one had greater influence on Maya's early development
than Momma, Angelou's grandmother, with whom Maya and Bailey
were sent to live after their parents' divorce. Although Annie
Henderson is not openly affectionate with her grandchildren, it is
clear that Maya feels deeply loved by her grandmother.
The way Annie Henderson takes responsibility for her extended
family is consistent with the importance of grandmothers in the
African American family. During slavery the Negro grandmother
occupied in many instances an important place in the plantation
economy and was highly esteemed by both the slaves and the
masters. . . . She was the repository of the accumulated lore and
superstition of the slaves and was on hand at the birth of black
children as well as white. She took under her care the orphaned and
abandoned children. . . . When emancipation came, it was often the
old grandmother who kept the generations together. (114-16)
In most Negro households, grandparents, nieces, nephews, adopted
children, and others who are not related even by adoption,
commonly form part of the family group; and members of the real
family are as commonly absent. . . . It is by now a well-established
generalization that the typical Negro family throughout the South is
matriarchal and elastic, in striking contrast to the more rigid and
patriarchal family organization of occidental white culture. (143)
But despite the positive aspects of finding a home with extended
family members, it should be noted that both Maya and Bailey
suffer from their parents' absence. They blame themselves for their
parents' divorce and separation from them. When they are reunited
with their mother during a yearlong stay in St. Louis, Maya is ever-
conscious of the fact that she cannot depend on her and fears that
she could be sent back to Stamps at any time. In a 1983 interview,
Angelou commented that Vivian Baxter "was a poor mother for a
child" ( Interview with Paterson, 422). Nevertheless, in another
interview, Angelou indicated that although she only lived with her
mother intermittently and for short periods until she was thirteen,
her mother has been a powerful role model for her: "I'm often
asked how I got over that without holding a grudge. I see her as
one of the greatest human beings I've ever met" ( Interview with
Oliver, 114).
Vivian Baxter's influence is most clearly seen during the period
Maya is living with her in California. When Maya decides to become
the first black streetcar conductorette, her mother initially warns
her that African Americans are not hired for this work. But once she
sees Maya's determination to challenge this discriminatory situation,
she gives her unflagging support. n Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin'
Merry Like Christmas Angelou credits both her mother's and her
grandmother's example for her refusal to go on welfare while
struggling to raise her son Guy as a single mother:
My pride had been starched by a family who assumed unlimited
authority in its own affairs. A grandmother, who raised me, my
brother and her own two sons, owned a general merchandise store.
She had begun her business in the early 1900's in Stamps,
Arkansas, by selling meat pies to saw men in a lumber mill, then
racing across town in time to feed workers in a cotton-gin mill four
miles away. . . . My beautiful mother, who ran businesses and men
with autocratic power, taught me to row my own boat, and paddle
my own canoe, hoist my own sail. She warned, in fact, "If you want
something done, do it yourself." (10-11)
There is no doubt that Vivian Baxter practices what she preaches.
In California she initially provides the economic support for her
children. When Maya and Bailey want to know what she does for a
living, she describes her work in the saloons and gambling dens
with characteristic honesty. Later, Vivian Baxter marries Daddy
Clidell, and the family's financial situation is further secured by
Clidell's real estate holdings and the series of roomers who share
their fourteen-room house in San Francisco. (By the end of the
second volume of Angelou's autobiography, Vivian and Daddy Clidell
are divorced [ Gather Together in My Name, 170].)
Despite her occasional economic dependence on male lovers or
husbands (in St. Louis her boyfriend, Mr. Freeman, provides the
basic necessities), Vivian Baxter never appears to be controlled by
the men in her life, nor will she allow her daughter to be. When she
learns that Maya is pregnant, she asks if Maya loves the father and
if he loves her. When the answer to both questions is no, she
matter-of-factly accepts that her daughter will be an unwed mother.
In the course of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya's mother,
already divorced from Bailey Johnson, Sr., lives with Mr. Freeman
(who is promptly arrested after raping Maya), and finally marries
Daddy Clidell, whom Angelou suggests she was initially prepared to
dismiss as just one more of her mother's lovers.
ROLE MODELS
Maya Angelou has cited numerous role models for her life and work,
and for African Americans in general. In an interview with Claudia
Tate, she asserted that whites and males are dominant in the world
and that they must be countered with other role models, from
family members to historical heroines:
We need to see our mothers, aunts, our sisters, and grandmothers.
We need to see Frances Harper, Sojourner Truth, Fannie Lou
Hammer, women of our heritage. We need to have these women
preserved. We need them all: . . . Constance Motley, Etta
Motten. . . . All of these women are important as role models.
Depending on our profession, some may be even more important.
Zora Neale Hurston means a great deal to me as a writer. (2)
When asked in the same interview about other writers who have
influenced her work, Angelou mentioned several -- James Baldwin,
Toni Morrison, Rosa Guy, Ann Petry, Joan Didion -- but she
acknowledged as particularly important "two men who probably
formed my writing ambition more than any others. They were Paul
La[u]rence Dunbar and William Shakespeare" (11).
In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Angelou gives special
recognition to the importance of black poets. After the disastrous
speech by the white speaker at her graduation, Maya and her
classmates are saved from self-hatred by the class valedictorian,
who leads the audience in singing "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" by
James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson.
In another episode with striking similarities to the highs and lows of
her eighth-grade graduation, Angelou remembers the significance of
the boxer Joe Louis for African Americans. She describes the
crowding of men, women, and children into her grandmother's
general store to listen to a radio broadcast of Louis's fight with
Primo Carnera. From Angelou's description it appears that the
outcome of the fight has a direct correlation to her people's destiny
and self-worth. When Louis is declared the winner, she exults: "Joe
Louis had proved that we were the strongest people in the world"
(115).
Child Sexual Abuse
When asked whether any of her works have been misunderstood,
Maya Angelou replied: "A number of people have asked me why I
wrote about the rape in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. They
wanted to know why I had to tell that rape happens in the black
community" ( Tate, 11). Indeed, this incident, which occurs in St.
Louis when Maya is seven years old, is one of the most horrifying
events of Angelou's childhood. But despite those who would criticize
Angelou for revealing that child sexual abuse occurs in the African
American community, studies have shown that child sexual abuse
"is not limited by racial, ethnic, or economic boundariessexual
abuse of children exists in all strata of society" ( U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services, i).
Angelou's account is a sensitive and brutally honest description of
the abuse by her mother's boyfriend, Mr. Freeman, which in court
against him. When asked whether Mr. Freeman had ever touched
her before the rape, a guilt-ridden Maya lies and answers that he
had not because she is afraid that she will be ostracized by her
family if they find out that she had not disclosed his earlier fondling
of her. Mr. Freeman is convicted and almost immediately found
murdered. Maya, believing her lie makes her responsible for Mr.
Freeman's death, decides that she must stop talking altogether so
that others will not be harmed.
On the whole, they were part of a confusing flood of feelings and
sensations, usually dwarfed by an overwhelming sense of
helplessness, guilt, anger, or fear. In fact, the pleasure often only
intensified the guilt or the helplessness, since it added to the child's
confusion and left the child feeling out of control of even his or her
own emotions. (65-66) This progresses from fondling to forcible
rape, and of her own confusion and pain as she tries to understand
what is happening to her. The young Maya is frightened into
submission by her abuser, as Mr. Freeman threatens to kill Bailey if
Maya ever reveals the abuse. At the same time, however, Maya
initially enjoys being held by Mr. Freeman. She writes, "From the
way he was holding me I knew he'd never let me go or let anything
bad ever happen to me" (61). After Mr. Freeman's crime is
discovered, Maya is forced to testify
Angelou has stated that one of the challenges she faced in writing
about the rape was to avoid portraying Mr. Freeman in a completely
negative way. "I wanted people to see that the man was not totally
an ogre" ( Tate, 11). In an interview in 1987, Angelou commented
on how she has been able to forgive Mr. Freeman: "It had to do. . .
with 'seeing the man. I don't mean physically seeing him. But trying
to understand how really sick and alone that man was. I don't mean
that I condone at all. But to try to understand is always healing' "
( Angelou, Interview with Crane, 175). Despite her ability to forgive,
Angelou noted in this interview that she still bears the emotional
scars of the abuse.
Daddy Clidell as a Trickster figure
Daddy Clidell is the first person who serves as a true father figure
for Maya. His character is drawn from the folklore of the African-
American community. He is depicted as someone who uses the
implicit racism of his victim and draws them in with his poor black
boy image to successfully dupe them out of their money and
thereby increases his wealth.
The trickster figure in African and African American cultures
function as "masters of disguise and consummate survivors,
skillfully outmaneuvering their foes with guile, wit, and charm.”
The image of the trickster figure comes from the Yoruba culture
wherein a monkey serves as someone who mediates between the
worlds of gods and people. In Yoruba the figure is a trickster-god,
but in other community stories he takes the form of a monkey.
Rafiqi in Lion King is a perfect example of a trickster figure in
African mythology.
This figure finds its way in African American oral history. It is also
echoed in Br'er Rabbit (also spelled Bre'r Rabbit or Brer Rabbit or
Bruh Rabbit, with the title "Br'er" pronounced /ˈbrɛər/) is a central
figure in the Uncle Remus stories of the Southern United States.
He is a trickster character who succeeds through his wits rather
than through strength, tweaking authority figures and bending
social mores as he sees fit.
Many have suggested that the American incarnation, Br'er Rabbit,
represents the enslaved African who uses his wits to overcome
circumstances and to exact revenge on his adversaries,
representing the white slave-owners. The word "Br'er" in his name
(and in those of other characters in the stories) reflects the habit of
addressing another man as "brother" in many African cultures.
While modern Americans generally pronounce the second 'r' in
Br'er, the original pronunciation was "Bruh" or "Buh." When Joel
Chandler Harris spelled "Br'er" with an 'er' at the end of the word,
he was indicating the Southern pronunciation of the final 'er' as in
"brothuh" (brother), sistuh (sister), or faa'muh (farmer).
Brer Rabbit is the archetypal hero-trickster character from African
American oral literature. While Brer Rabbit got much exposure in
Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings
(1881), folklorists and literature scholars are well aware of the rich
cycle of tales that circulate around this tricky and cunning figure.
These tales thrived especially during the pre- and post-slave era
up until the mid-1900s. Resembling the two major tricksters of
Africa (Anansi, the Ashanti spider, and Ijapa, the Yoruba turtle),
“Buh” Rabbit has always seemed to be the most helpless and most
afraid of all the animals in the kingdom. Brer Rabbit is constantly at
odds with the likes of Brer Bear, Brer Wolf, and Sly Brer Fox. This
trio, singularly or collectively, attempts to humiliate, outsmart, and
sometimes even kill Brer Rabbit. In contrast, Brer Rabbit tries to
nullify the plans of his stronger archenemies by using his superior
intelligence and his quick thinking. He usually gets the better of the
bigger and stronger animals.
Since the Brer Rabbit cycle of tales flourished during the time of
slavery and almost always involved the weak in a never-ending
contest with the strong, scholars view these tales as slave
expressions of subversive sentiments against the institution of
slavery. It was much too dangerous for slaves to reveal to slave
owners the harsh realities and cruelties of slavery. But slaves
could vent some of their frustrations and hostilities against their
masters by participating in the performance of the Brer Rabbit
tales.
Daddy Clidell as the trickster lures his victims and reaps the
rewards for his cunning and bravery. This also gives him cult
status and as Maya says, “The needs …feast.” (225)
