Intro
Her first of many autobiographic works, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings charts Maya Angelou's experience as an African-American girl in Arkansas, where she coped with not only racial identity, segregation, and discrimination, but also becoming temporarily mute after being raped by her stepfather at the age of eight. Grim as all that sounds, there is also a strain of hope and determination, along with moments of humor—plus, Angelou toys with the autobiography form, lending the book a page-turning quality you'd expect in a bestselling novel.
There are tons of things we cultural studies aficionados could sink our teeth into in this one. First, it concerns folks who are on the margins of culture and subject to oppression, while also exploring themes of individual and group identity and resistance to such oppression. The text also fits in with broader issues of twentieth-century American politics and questions of gender, race, and "otherness."
Quote
To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision. Few, if any, survive their teens. Most surrender to the vague but murderous pressure of adult conformity. It becomes easier to die and avoid conflicts than to maintain a constant battle with the superior forces of maturity.
Until recently each generation found it more expedient to plead guilty to the charge of being young and ignorant, easier to take the punishment meted out by the older generation (which had itself confessed to the same crime short years before). The command to grow up at once was more bearable than the faceless horror of wavering purpose, which was youth.
The bright hours when the young rebelled against the descending sun had to give way to twenty-four-hour periods called "days" that were named as well as numbered.
The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power.
The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.
Analysis
Maya laments the transition from youth's willful impulsiveness to the grind of adult life and its expectations of conformity and order. She notes that many people make this transition willingly because it provides a sense of stability and routine: from this perspective, complying with the demand to "grow up" is the easiest option, much as Peter Pan might complain.
Tough as hitting puberty may be, Maya says it gets even worse when the youngster is a black female who is up against not only these "common forces of nature," but a "tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate, and Black lack of power." Yikes! Life is tough enough, and having to contend with these intersecting areas of discrimination makes puberty all the harder.
Angelou's persistence and resilience, even confronting others' doubts when facing the success of "the adult American Negro female," demonstrate the importance of attitude in the struggle to make life work—she's totally a survivor, in the immortal melodies of Destiny's Child. Or: a representative of the variable form of the autobiography to show the challenges of oppression from racial, gender, and class perspectives—in the immortal language of cultural studies.