Discovering Self Through Race in “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”
A person's identity helps an individual to identify a particular question and answer the question “Who am I?' Identity is known to be an understanding of what someone or something is. This awareness contains two main components, including social identity and personal identity. The word identity varies considerably from that of an individual. The people are free to form their personality before they enter another level of damage. The topic of human identity is clearly depicted in “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”. The aim for this analysis essay is to make an analysis of this concept through the review of the book.
In Maya Angelou's memoir “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, the injustice is a strong factor in forming personalities. African-American people's deprivation, oppression, and abuse in the mid-20th century also forced the protagonists of Angelou's myths to establish complicated connections. Racism, from childhood onwards, removes the characters from their dark identities and restricts them to overcome their dissatisfaction. Thoughts are the primary way the characters express their frustration at racism. The community has the power to preserve connections between characters and their race, but essentially individuality remains their strongest instrument to avoid injustice. Angelou discusses how racism influences identity through the African American experience. Angelou uses childlike motifs and forms to demonstrate how prejudice is rooted in black children's brains. The fairy godmother illusion of Marguerite in “I Know Why Caged Bird Sings” reveals a loathing that derives from discrimination, “… I was really white and because a cruel fairy stepmother, who was understandably jealous of my beauty, had turned me into a too-big Negro girl”. Marguerite doesn't only want to be white but considers white is her nature too. This demonstrates Marguerite's impression of herself to be dramatically affected by bigotry. She’s in perpetual self-awareness, arising from her assumption that she's never enough because she's black. The existence of a fake white version is now clear, “In a society attuned to white standards of physical beauty, the black girl child cries herself to sleep at night to the tune of her inadequacy. At least she can gain temporary respite in the impossible dreams of whiteness”. Marguerite can not see, since she is a child, that her feelings of inadequacy come from a culture that suffers from prejudice; she blames herself instead. The identity of itself resembles the life of Margherite, exposing the unbelievable impact of bigotry on her life through the teenage years. Much like Angelou uses the fantasy of a godmother to prove that bigotry has an effect on Margarite's upbringing, Angelou uses the form of a song in “Harlem Hopscotch” Showing bias on “Harlem Hopscotch” children. Lines describing African American abuse is interlinked with childhood lines to highlight the racist actions of children, “One foot down, then hop! It’s hot. / Good things for the ones that have got. / Another jump, now to the left. / Everybody for hisself”. The children can not recognize the profound challenge of bigotry. The production of a song from this difficulty makes them know the effect of discrimination on their lives. The song allows them to manage their patriarchal culture because they know how to play a hopscotch game, the development of a game makes it easier for children to experience a life of prejudice. As the formation of personal identity starts in childhood, the internalization of bigotry and child hate highlights that injustice plays an important part in defining identity.
Culture has a significant impact on the identity of individuals concerning racism. Angelou involves activities such as “I know why the Caged Bird Sings” to improve this theory. They digress from the main track and do not dramatically alter the transformation of Marguerite from infant to mother or her path to San Francisco. The goal is to demonstrate the community's role in shaping the identity of Marguerite. The graduation ceremony of Marguerite reveals the black culture of Stamps' common identity. after hearing what the white politician said, Marguerite feels helpless.' The white kids were going to have a chance to become Galileos and Madame Curies and Edisons and Gauguins, and our boys (the girls weren’t even in on it) would try to be Jesse Owenses and Joe Louis’s”. The political remarks are accompanied by the Negro National Anthem's unplanned singing. Marguerite's depression is controlled by the black pride seen by this action, “I was no longer simply a member of the proud graduating class of 1940; I was a proud member of the wonderful, beautiful, Negro race'. This confirmation of her black identity contrasted strongly with her sadness. This illustrates how the group affects the self. Relation with other Afro-Americans substitutes faith in their black identities for self-hating. Although this group intervention does not protest injustice, it tells Marguerite that she has no bigotry to embrace, “Here is the action on the part of a member of the black community–Henry Reed’s improvised leading the audience in “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing”–that at the same time avoids an irreversible confrontation with the white oppressor and permits the black community to feel its dignity and superiority”. The society and Marguerite as a person are reinforced by this moment of common integrity. While this scene shows that communities stand united in the face of racism, 'When I Think About Myself' shows a marginalized culture. The first two perspectives discuss the oppression that the speaker experiences, while the third stanza illustrates the mutual perspective of the speaker in her culture. “My folks can make me split my side, / I laughed so hard I nearly died, /The tales they tell sound just like lying, / They grow the fruit, / But eat the rind”. By demonstrating the impact of racism on the African-American audience, Angelou indicates that the desperation of the speaker not only stems from her maltreatment but also from her community's mistreatment. The fractured self-image of the speaker is partially a reaction to how society has witnessed its ethnicity. Personal identity changes in reaction to communal interactions either positively or negatively.
After a history of racism, the capacity of character to accept their origins gives them the power to endure the injustice that African Americans eventually face. In “I know why the Caged Bird Sings” there is motherhood, Marguerite's final and most concrete position. Her son's birth signifies the passing of a girl from infancy to maturity to a female adult. “Just as gratefulness was confused in my mind with love, so possession became mixed up with motherhood. I had a baby. He was mine. Totally mine. No one had brought him up for me”. Marguerite's whole growth leads to a total dissolution of her professional identity as regards colonialism, discrimination, alienation, and sexual abuse. However, a child's physical possession offers the security she has missed her new mother's identity. “The birth of the baby brings Maya something totally her own, but, more importantly, brings her to a recognition of and acceptance of her full, instinctual womanhood. The child, father to the woman, opens the cage door and allows the fully developed woman to fly out. Now she feels the control of her sexual identity as well as of her social identity. The girl child no longer need ask, embarrassed, “What you looking at me for?” No longer need she fantasize any other reality than her own”. In Marguerite's connection to herself, motherhood marks a turning point. The infant brings meaning to his life and frees him from his insufficiency prison in exchange. Their identification is no longer based on racism's self-hatred, but on their son, who reaffirms his new position as a mother as a meaningful one. In the culture she feels formerly abandoned, she has found a place. The final stance of 'Harlem Hopscotch' reveals the speaker's option to take up the fight against injustice and prejudice in his youth. Statement of closure “Both feet flat, the game is done/They think I lost I think I won” Plays absolute personality embrace by explicitly specified 'I.' The speaker finished the 'game' of life at this stage. Although he lives in an oppressive America, the speaker's deliberate effort to celebrate black cultures is the gesture of opposition to racism. Whilst every stage of the game lets the speaker lose, it helps the speaker to effectively finish the game by retaining a clear identity., “To live in a world measured by such blunt announcements as ‘food is gone’ and ‘the rent is due,’ people need to be extremely energetic and resilient. Compounding the pressures of hunger, poverty, and unemployment is the racial bigotry that consistently discriminates against people of color. Life itself has become a brutal game of hopscotch, a series of desperate yet hopeful leaps, landing but never pausing long”. The speaker's willingness to land, though never a long rest, helps the speaker to end the game with an identification that is untouched by society's presumption of self-hate. This poem does not have an explicit affirmation of ethnic identity such as 'Harlem Hopscotch,' but it reveals a new way of accepting ethnic identification and culture. Identity embrace in every way offers instruments to accept and even combat injustice.
The evolving identities of individuals in the memories and poems of Maya Angelou reflect African Americans' quest in the face of racism to discover an everlasting sense of self. Angelou's childhood writings demonstrate the damaging influence on the personal identity of internalized self-hate. The audience will witness the characters' response to prejudice through their inward conversation with their narration style. She also explains the African American collective identity to explain how the reaction of society to racism influences the individual's identity. Lastly, she explains how the recognition of one's personality tends to combat injustice. While not everyone had the perspective of Angelou as an African American, someone experiencing racism will relate to her characters' struggle.
