162 Maya Angelou
mother, but before the novel ends, the siblings have
moved back and forth a couple of times.
The instability of her existence makes Maya
feel a lack of control, which is further emphasized
by her being raped by her mother’s boyfriend when
she is only eight years old. Feeling guilty for having
allowed the man to come near her, Maya does not
dare to admit in court that he has touched her once
before, and when she realizes that her mother (after
finding out what has happened) has had her boy-
friend killed, Maya is convinced that his death is the
punishment for her lie. Her feelings of guilt become
so unbearable that she withdraws into silence, refus-
ing to speak to anyone but her brother.
As a child, Maya fails to comprehend why the
siblings are being moved around, and the adult
Marguerite expresses her confusion: “There was
an army of adults, whose motives and movements
I just couldn’t understand and who made no effort
to understand mine.” The experience makes her
feel powerless, and the feeling of lacking control is
emphasized by her race. On her graduation day, for
example, Marguerite alternates between hope for
her future and deep despair for the whole of her
race, as well as for the lack of opportunity they are
all facing. The ceremony in school, however, ends
on a note of hope with the congregation singing
the black national anthem. But the words that speak
most clearly to Marguerite are those of a white man,
Patrick Henry: “Give me liberty or give me death.”
Marguerite feels a strong sense of powerlessness
and displacement at home, as well as in society for
reasons of race, and Henry’s words become symbolic
of the determination she forms as a result of her
experiences.
On a trip to Mexico with her father, Marguerite
overcomes circumstances for the first time, and she
revels in the feeling of accomplishment and control
this gives her. Although she has never driven a car
before, she finds herself in the middle of the night,
her father lying drunk in the backseat, maneuvering
his vehicle from a small village in Mexico to the
American border. Driving on winding paths dan-
gerously close to the mountain edge, she finds the
experience “exhilarating” and recalls how “[i]t was
me, Marguerite, against the elemental opposition
... I was controlling Mexico, and might and alone-
ness, and inexperienced youth and Bailey Johnson,
Sr., and death and insecurity, and even gravity.”
The experience empowers her to take charge in all
parts of her life, and a few years later, after extreme
perseverance, she becomes the first female Negro
conductor on the San Francisco streetcars.
Marguerite develops through the novel from
a person unsure of her place—both in her family
and in the greater society—to a person who is able
to set goals for herself and fulfill them against all
odds. Her first job is the result of an unrelenting
insistence on her right to work where she pleases;
and, similarly, she sets the time and place for her
first voluntary sexual experience, thereby reclaiming
ownership of her own body, and to the right to make
her own decisions. The novel ends with the birth of
her son and her mother’s assurance that there is no
need to worry about doing the right thing: “If you’re
for the right thing, then you do it without thinking.”
Eva Lupinrace in I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
The title of Maya Angelou’s autobiographical story
is a line from a poem called “Sympathy” by the
African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. By
choosing a line from a poet who is considered rep-
resentative of the black community, Angelou implies
that her personal story has social implications. Fur-
thermore, the author’s dedication, which appears on
the opening page of the book, to her son “and all the
strong black birds of promise who defy the odds and
gods and sing their songs,” emphasizes the collective
sense of her experience.
The novel confronts the issue of race gradually,
similar to the way a child discovers the powers that
control his or her being. When Maya is young, she
moves mainly in the black community, and her
interaction with white people is scarce: “In Stamps
the segregation was so complete that most Black
children didn’t really, absolutely know what whites
looked like.” This does not mean, however, that
white people’s power over the blacks’ existence went
unnoticed. Maya painfully recalls how she and her
brother were told to empty the vegetable bin one
night, after the sheriff had warned them that the
Klan was coming around. Once the bin was empty,
Uncle Willie climbed in, and they covered him with