Final Paper: Intro & Conclusion

Since its publication in 1970, Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings has long been considered a modern classic of American literature. The book, unique in it’s autobiographical nature and novelistic form, tells the story of Angelou’s early childhood in Stamps, Arkansas at the height of the Jim Crow South. Touching on issues such as segregation, identity, family, motherhood, rape, and varying instances of injustice, Angelou’s confessional look at her early years eventually reveals an unfathomably resilient spirit and ability to draw knowledge and meaning from hardship.

In order to understand the striking cultural relevance of Caged Bird, one must first understand the context of its publication. During the late 1960s, due to her status as a female writer with next to no renown, as well as her being African American, publishers were virtually uninterested in who Maya Angelou seemed to be on paper. Moreover, her style was unique to say the least. According to writer Linda Wagner-Martin, “there was very little autobiography or memoir being published, and there had been almost no autobiography written by African Americans since the days of slave narratives,” (Adventurous Spirit, 3). In a day where only male-driven fiction lay at the heart of respected literary circles, Angelou’s form was undoubtedly pioneering. Yet, it was that uniqueness that caught the attention of Robert Loomis, Angelou’s eventual Random House editor. Drawn in by her unapologetic yet somehow un-resentful approach to the bleak and often grim episodes of life as a young black girl in the Deep South, Loomis encouraged her to attempt an autobiography. What resulted is now celebrated as luminous, moving, and a quintessential read to understanding both “the black experience” and the birth of autobiography as a more serious genre in American lit, especially when written by women and African Americans.

In this essay, I explore I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in the context of the literary autobiographical genre. Critics have often noted that autobiography can take on an “imaginative” form, taking on the challenge that is bridging the gap between the historic and the invented, stating also that a successful writer need not have necessarily lived a fascinating life in order to pull this off. I hope to look more closely at why Angelou, whose slice of early life in Stamps as depicted in Caged Bird was certainly “ordinary,” chose to formulate her autobiographies using notably literary tropes and moves, employing character and theme development mechanisms characteristic of the novel. Additionally, by looking more closely at her style and the cultural effect of her writing, I hope to offer an account of how this choice contributes to the overall meaning readers and critics alike have been able to draw from her transcending first autobiography – a meaning both political and intrinsically valuable in nature.

//

 

It is inarguable that the work of Maya Angelou left a powerful fingerprint on autobiography as a genre, especially when published at a time where the real-life stories of African American women were given little to no credit. A pioneer of her craft and one of the first to take a stab at what her editor often called “literary” autobiography, her writing has influenced the likes of many to follow in her footsteps and write of a search for meaning through mere truth. She has been an instrumental influence to an ever-growing list of female autobiographers, novelists, and poets; a list that incudes renowned writers such as Toni Morrison, Jesmyn Ward, and Nikki Finney, even reaching as far as household names such as Oprah Winfrey. According to Morrison, Angelou’s writing “gave license to a host of other African-American writers. It opened the door to our inside, our interior minus the white gaze or sanction.” In this way, Angelou’s work extends far beyond the confines of genre or even literature itself, though she did a tremendous work for both: her contributions by way of Caged Bird (amongst her other books) gave a voice to a previously silent sect of society. It gave widespread value to stories that were once forgotten, swept under the rug, or simply unheard by American culture to begin with. It was Angelou’s ability to glide seamlessly between life and art that made her an extraordinary writer, however, it was her ability to do so while remaining honest, kind, and brave that made her an extraordinary woman.

No comments yet.

Leave a Reply

Powered by WordPress. Designed by Woo Themes