I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou 1971 New York: Bantam Books (read October 2008)
Recommended (high school, 11th/12 grade)
*Contains sexually explicit material, depicts child rape that happened to Maya at age 8.
The story begins with Maya, age 3 and 4-year old brother Bailey Johnson, Jr. being sent by train (under care of a porter and a note pinned to their clothing) from Long Beach, California to Stamps, Arkansas to live with their paternal grandmother. Maya is never sure why her parents sent them away. The brother and sister enjoy a rather simple life in Stamps, where Momma (what they called their grandmother) owned a general store and cared for their crippled Uncle Willie. During the Great Depression, Maya’s family kept the neighbors supplied with staple goods by trading or using credit.

At about age 7, Maya’s father showed up (she and Bailey, Jr. thought their parents might be dead) to take the children to St. Louis to live with their mother and maternal grandparents (father continued on to California). Their uncles were a rowdy bunch who defended their family fiercely. When they enrolled in school in St. Louis, Maya and her brother thought their classmates were ‘backward’ and so they were moved up a grade so as not make their classmates ‘feel inferior.’ Maya said they were good at math from working in the store and good at reading since there was nothing else to do in Stamps. After a year and half in their grandparents’ house, Maya and Bailey moved with Mother Dear (their biological mother) to another home that was shared with their mother’s boyfriend Mr. Freeman, a big Southern man who at first seemed kind and provided the basics for them. After some time Mr. Freeman molested Maya. Later, he raped her.** He told her he would kill Bailey, Jr. if she ever told. When the truth was found out, Mr. Freeman went to trial, was found guilty, but released the same day. Two days later Mr. Freeman was found dead (probably at the hands of the uncles). Maya felt tremendous guilt about his trial and death. From the trauma, Maya stopped speaking and eventually she and Bailey, Jr., were sent back to Arkansas.

A few years later, the brother and sister were taken from Arkansas by Momma (grandmother) to live in Oakland, California with their mother, whom they both describe as beautiful as a movie star. 'Daddy Clidell' lived there too and everyone thought Maya was his daughter. They both seemed proud of the declaration.

Eventually when Maya was about 15 and living with the family in San Francisco, she wanted to work on a street car as a conductorette-unheard of for a black woman in those days. Through perseverance she was given the job and kept it for a semester until she returned to school. Later in Maya’s late teenage years, she tells of a one-time encounter with a neighborhood boy and becomes pregnant. The story ends with the birth of her son Guy.