Summary of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Essay -- Maya Angelou Liter

Summary of I Know Why the Caged Bird SingsMaya recalls an Easter Sunday at the Colored Wesleyan Episcopal Church in Arkansas. Her m other makes her a special Easter dress from lavender taffeta, and Maya thinks the dress will make her look like the blond-haired blue-eyed(prenominal) movie star that she wishes, deep down, to be. But, the dress turns out to be drab and ugly, as Maya laments that she is black, and unattractive as well. She leaves her church pew to go to the bathroom, and doesnt make it she runs from the church, ashamed, al bingle glad to be out of church and away from the children who torment her, and make her childhood even harder than it already is. AnalysisOne of the main themes of this chapter is flow and visual aspect Maya already establishes that she wanted to be a movie-star looking white girl as a child, and tried to deny her real appearance. Connected with the idea of race is beauty, as Maya describes images of blond hair and blue eyes as the paragon of bea uty, and says her appearance is merely a black ugly dream that she will inflame out of. Maya seems to have been an imaginative child, as she envisions her head bursting like a dropped watermelon from trying to hold her bladder. Angelou shows a talent for using images to explain and sort out feelings, and employing her descriptive powers to make even mundane incidents very vivid. This autobiography, which covers Mayas life from age 3 to age 16, is often considered a bildungsroman since it is primarily a tale of young person and growing into young adulthood. However, unlike a typical, novel-form bildungsroman, the story does not end with the achievement of adulthood Angelou continues to write about her life in four other volumes, all addressing her life chronologically from her childhood to the accomplishments of her adulthood. It is important to keep in mind that this is an autobiography, rather than a novel, and that the narrator and the author are indeed one and the same, and th e events described in the book are intended to relate a very personal portrait of a persons life. Chapter 1SummaryMaya says that when she was three age old and her brother was four, they were sent from their father in California to their paternal grandma in Stamps, Arkansas. They were eventually embraced by the town, and lived at the back of the store that their grandmother and uncle owned and ran. ... ...al and flawed. The images and words chosen to represent St. Louis tell of the childrens fear of this new place, and their apprehension at being taken to live with someone they dont know. The crowded-together, soot-covered buildings are wholly alien, and a bit bleak to them. They may have been driving to Hell for all the children knew, with their uncertainty and fear coloring the strange landscape. She begins to believe in Grownups Betrayal, as again they are being let down by their father her tone reveals her hurt and bitterness at being reclaimed by their father, exclusively to be sent away once again. Angelou describes her mother as being like a hurricane in its perfect power, or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow these metaphors convey that Mayas mother is a flawless work of nature, vibrant, powerful, and very beautiful. Maya seems to admire her from afar, too, like you would admire a rainbow from afar but the instant power of the childrens sleep together for her is encapsulated in the two cliched phrases struck dumb and revel at first sight. Although Maya might feel a bit distant from her mother, nevertheless the love she feels brings them a little closer.