I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
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{{infobox Book |
| name = I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
| orig title =
| translator =
| image = [[Image:Caged bird2.jpg|''I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'', Reissue|100px]]
| author = [[Maya Angelou]]
| cover_artist =
| country = [[United States]]
| language = [[English language|English]]
| series =
| genre = [[Autobiography]]
| publisher = Random House
| release_date = [[1969 in literature|1969]]
| media_type = Print ([[Hardcover|Hardback]])
| pages = 288 pp (Hardcover)
| isbn = ISBN 9-7803-7550789-2
| preceded_by =
| followed_by = [[Gather Together in My Name]]
}}
'''''I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings''''' is a [[1969 in literature|1969]] [[autobiography]] about the early years of author [[Maya Angelou|Maya Angelou's]] life. The book's title is taken from a poem by [[Paul Laurence Dunbar]]. ''I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'' begins when three-year-old Angelou and her older brother are sent to [[Stamps, Arkansas]] to live with their grandmother and ends when Angelou becomes a mother at age sixteen. The author uses her coming-of-age story to illustrate the ways in which [[racism]] and trauma can be overcome by a strong character and a love of literature. Its graphic depiction of childhood [[rape]], racism, and sexuality have resulted in the book being banned by many libraries and parent groups. It was nominated for a [[National Book Award]] in 1970 and remained on ''[[The New York Times]]'' paperback bestseller list for two years.
Written at the end of American [[American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968)|Civil Rights movement]], the book was inspired by the [[assassination]] of [[Martin Luther King, Jr.]]<ref name="letters">{{cite news | last = Smith | first = Dinitia | title = A career in letters, 50 years and counting | work = The New York Times | date = [[2007-01-23]] | url = http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/books/23loom.html | accessdate = 2007-10-23}}</ref> Angelou was "tricked" into writing it by her friend [[James Baldwin]] and her editor, [[Robert Loomis]], who gave her the challenge of writing [[autobiography]] as literature. Although classified as an autobiography and written in first-person narrative, the book has many fictional aspects, causing some critics to classify it as an [[autobiographical novel]].
''I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'' is the first in a six-volume autobiographical series, covering Angelou's childhood and young adult experiences. Later books in the series include ''[[Gather Together in My Name]]'' ([[1974 in literature|1974]]), ''[[Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas]]'' ([[1976 in literature|1976]]), ''[[The Heart of a Woman]]'' ([[1981 in literature|1981]]), ''[[All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes]]'' ([[1986 in literature|1986]]), and ''[[A Song Flung Up To Heaven]]'' ([[2002 in literature|2002]]).
==Background and title==
[[Image:IKnowWhy.jpg|thumb|115px|right|Book cover illustration of paperback version of ''I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'']]
[[Image:Jules Feiffer.jpg|thumb|right|Cartoonist [[Jules Feiffer]] (''pictured'') was instrumental in the publication of Angelou's autobiography.]]
''I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'' was inspired by the [[1968]] assassination of [[Martin Luther King, Jr.]]; he named her the Northern Coordinator for his [[Southern Christian Leadership Conference]] in the late 1950s.<ref name="poetry"/> She was "deeply depressed",<ref name="letters"/> so to help lift her spirits, Angelou's friend [[James Baldwin]] brought her to a dinner party at the home of [[cartoonist]] [[Jules Feiffer]] and his wife Judy. The guests began telling stories of their childhoods, and the following day Judy Feiffer called [[Robert Loomis]], an editor at [[Random House]], and "told him that he ought to get this woman to write a book".<ref name="letters"/> At first, Angelou refused to write her [[autobiography]], since she considered herself a poet and playwright.<ref name="protest">{{cite journal | last = Walker | first = Pierre A. | title = Racial protest, identity, words, and form in Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | journal = College Literature | volume = 22 | issue = 3 | pages = 91–108 | date = October 1995 | url = http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3709/is_199510/ai_n8723217 | accessdate = 2008-05-24}}</ref> She reported that he "tricked" her into it by "daring" her: "It’s just as well, because to write an autobiography as literature is just about impossible".<ref name="letters"/> In her words, Angelou was unable to "resist a challenge",<ref name="protest"/> and she began to write ''Caged Bird.''
Angelou went on to write five additional volumes in her series of autobiographies, covering her young adult experiences. They are distinct in style and narration, but unified in their themes and "stretch over time and place",<ref>Lupton, p. 1</ref> from Arkansas to Africa and back to the US, occurring in time from the beginnings of [[World War II]] to King's assassination.<ref>Lupton, p. 1</ref> Like ''Caged Bird'', the events in these books are episodic and crafted like a series of short stories, but do not follow a strict chronology. Later books in the series include ''[[Gather Together in My Name]]'' ([[1974 in literature|1974]]), ''[[Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas]]'' ([[1976 in literature|1976]]), ''[[The Heart of a Woman]]'' ([[1981 in literature|1981]]), ''[[All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes]]'' ([[1986 in literature|1986]]), and ''[[A Song Flung Up To Heaven]]'' ([[2002 in literature|2002]]).
The title of the book comes from the third stanza of the poem "Sympathy", by [[Paul Laurence Dunbar]]:
<blockquote>I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,<br/>When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,<br/>When he beats his bars and would be free;<br/>It is not a carol of joy or glee,<br/>But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,<br/>But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings –<br/> I know why the caged bird sings.</blockquote>
==Plot summary==
{{see also|List of characters in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings}}
''I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'' follows Marguerite's (called "My" or "Maya" by her brother) life from the age of three to sixteen and the struggles she experiences in the [[racism|racist]] South. Abandoned by their parents, she and her older brother, Bailey, are sent to live with their paternal grandmother ("Momma"), a smart, religious, and entrepreneural woman, and crippled uncle ("Uncle Willie") in [[Stamps, Arkansas]]. Maya and Bailey are haunted by their parents' abandonment throughout the book. They travel alone and are labeled like baggage.<ref>Bloom, p. 19</ref>
Many of the problems Maya encounters in her childhood stem from the prejudices and blatant racism of her white neighbors. Despite the fact that Momma is wealthier because she owns the general store that serves as the center of activities in the black part of town, the white children of their town hassle them insolently. One of these "powhitetrash" girls reveals her [[pubic hair]] to Momma in a humiliating incident. Early in the book (chapter three), Momma hides Uncle Willie in a vegetable bin to protect him from [[Ku Klux Klan]] raiders. Maya experiences many other instances of racism throughout the book. She has to endure the insult of her name being shortened to "Mary" by a racist employer. A white speaker at her eighth grade graduation ceremony disparages the black audience by implying their limited job opportunities. A white dentist refuses to treat Maya's rotting tooth, even when Momma reminds him of a previous loan. When the black community of Stamps enjoys a moment of victory for their race, when they listen to the [[radio]] broadcast of [[Joe Louis|Joe Louis']] championship fight, they feel oppressed by racism.
A turning point in the book occurs when Maya and Bailey's father unexpectedly appears in Stamps, where his big city ways impress the small town. He takes them with him when he leaves after three weeks, but brings them to their mother in [[St. Louis]]. Eight-year-old Maya is [[child sexual abuse|sexually abused]] and [[raped]] by her mother's boyfriend, Mr. Freeman. There is a trial, and Mr. Freeman is found guilty, but he escapes jail time and is murdered, probably by her uncles. This burdens Maya with [[guilt]] and causes her to withdraw from everyone but her brother. Even after being sent back to Stamps, Maya remains reclusive and nearly [[mute]] until she meets Mrs. Bertha Flowers, "the aristocrat of Black Stamps",<ref>Angelou, p. 93</ref> who supplies her with books to encourage her love of reading, and coaxes her out of her shell.
Finally, when Bailey is disturbed by the discovery of the corpse of a black man, Momma decides to send her grandchildren to their mother in [[San Francisco, California]]. Maya attends [[George Washington High School (San Francisco)|George Washington High School]] and studies dance and drama on a scholarship at the California Labor School. Before graduating, she becomes the first black female [[streetcar]] conductor in San Francisco. Maya visits her father in southern California one summer. She drives a car for the first time when she must transport her intoxicated father home from an excursion to [[Mexico]]. She experiences [[homelessness]] for a short time, after a fight with her father's girlfriend.
Maya enters adolescence, but not without awkwardness. She becomes worried that she might be a [[lesbian]] (which she equates with being a [[hermaphrodite]]), and initiates [[sexual intercourse]] with a teenage boy. She becomes [[pregnancy|pregnant]], which on the advice of her brother, she hides from her family until her eighth month of pregnancy in order to graduate from high school. Maya gives birth at the end of the book and begins her journey to adulthood by accepting her role as a mother to her newborn son.
==Themes==
===Identity===
As feminist scholar Maria Lauret states, Angelou and other female writers in the late 1960s and early 1970s have used the autobiography to restructure the ways to write about women's lives in a male-dominated society. Lauret sees a connection between the autobiographies Angelou has written and fictional first-person narratives; they can be called "fictions of subjectivity" and "feminist first-person narratives" because they employ the narrator as protagonist and "rely upon the illusion of presence in their mode of signification".<ref>Lauret, [http://books.google.com/books?id=xK_Pv0fc2L8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Maria+Lauret%22&sig=ACfU3U25UlxbmmPoh_0dAkxyMSztTDYCtg#PPA98,M1 p. 98]</ref> In the course of ''Caged Bird'', Maya goes from being a victim of racism and having an inferiority complex and identity crisis, to someone who knows who she is and feels pride, and is able to respond to racism with dignity.<ref name="protest"/>
Lauret states that "the formation of female cultural identity" is woven into Angelou's narrative, setting her up as "a role model for Black women". Lauret agrees with other scholars that Angelou uses her many roles, incarnations, and identities in her books to "signify multiple layers of [[oppression]] and personal history". Angelou begins this technique in her first autobiography, and continues it in her subsequent volumes, especially her demonstration of the "racist habit"<ref>Lauret, [http://books.google.com/books?id=xK_Pv0fc2L8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Maria+Lauret%22&sig=ACfU3U25UlxbmmPoh_0dAkxyMSztTDYCtg#PPA97,M1 p. 97]</ref> of renaming African Americans in ''Caged Bird'', as shown when Maya's white employer insists on calling her "Mary". According to scholar Sidonie Ann Smith, this oversight emphasizes Maya's feelings of inadequacy and denigrates her identity, individuality, and uniqueness. Maya understands this in the book, and rebels by breaking Mrs. Cullinan's favorite dish.<ref>Smith, p. 53</ref>
In ''Caged Bird'', rape is "a concept so forceful that it overcomes the autobiography, even though it is presented fairly briefly in the text".<ref>Lupton, [http://books.google.com/books?id=nBsaFf4qzRQC&pg=PA67&sig=ACfU3U0EOGo_8NK-Q1P9TOeLV-Ukgi4dnQ p. 67]</ref> Scholar Mary Vermillion compares Angelou's treatment of rape to [[Harriet Jacobs|Harriet Jacobs's]] in her autobiography, ''[[Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl]]''. Jacobs and Angelou both use rape as a metaphor for the suffering of their race, but while Jacobs uses it to critique slaveholding culture, Angelou at first internalizes twentieth-century racist conceptions of the black female body, and then challenges it.<ref>Vermillion (2004), p. 71–71</ref> Rape "represents the black girl's difficulties in controlling, understanding, and respecting both her body and her words".<ref>Vermillion (2004), p. 72</ref> Angelou connects the violation of her body and the devaluation of her words by the depiction of her self-imposed, five-year long silence after Mr. Freeman's rape trial and murder.<ref>Vermillion (2004), p. 73</ref> As Angelou stated, "I thought if I spoke, my mouth would just issue out something that would kill people, randomly, so it was better not to talk".<ref>{{cite journal | last = Healy | first = Sarah | title = Maya Angelou speaks to 2,000 at Arlington Theater | journal = Daily Nexus | volume = 81 | issue = 82 | location = UC Santa Barbara | date = 2001-02-21 | url = http://www.dailynexus.com/article.php?a=456 | accessdate = 2008-06-13}}</ref>
Another incident that solidifies Maya's identity is her trip to [[Mexico]] with her father, when she had to drive a car, something she had never done before, in order to return to California. For the first time and contrasted with her experience in Stamps, Maya is "totally in control of her fate".<ref>Smith, p. 55</ref> Maya recognizes the importance of this incident, as well as the incident that immediately follows it, her short period of homelessness after arguing with her father's girlfriend. These two incidences give Maya a knowledge of self-determination and confirm her self-worth.<ref>Smith, p. 54</ref>
"Kinship concerns" is woven throughout ''Caged Bird''.<ref>Lupton, [http://books.google.com/books?id=nBsaFf4qzRQC&pg=PA11&sig=ACfU3U2qrcqhRJZDovWZKkbGA1Kg4G2AoQ p. 11]</ref> African American literature scholar Dolly McPherson believes that Angelou's concept of family throughout her books must be understood in the light of the way in which she and her older brother were displaced by their parents at the beginning of ''Caged Bird''.<ref>McPherson (1990), p. 14</ref> Being sent away from their parents constituted a psychological rejection, something that as young children, was internalized and interpreted as "a rejection of self". This rejection also resulted in a loss of self for Maya and Bailey, as well as in a quest for love, acceptance, and self-worth.<ref>Smith, p. 52</ref>
Beginning in ''Caged Bird'', when Maya becomes a mother at the end of the book, motherhood is a "prevailing theme"<ref name="poetry">{{cite web | url = http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=180 | title = Maya Angelou | publisher = Poetry Foundation | accessdate = 2007-10-25}}</ref> in all of Angelou's autobiographies.<ref name="poetry"/> Lupton believes that Angelou's plot construction and character development were influenced by this mother/child motif found in the work of [[Harlem Renaissance]] poet [[Jessie Fauset]].<ref>Lupton, [http://books.google.com/books?id=nBsaFf4qzRQC&pg=PA49&sig=ACfU3U0SR3WP61UVW9BIUY7YdkcF-kxqOA p. 49]</ref> Scholar Mary Burgher believes that black women autobiographers like Angelou have debunked the stereotypes of African American mothers of "breeder and matriarch" and have presented them as having "a creative and personally fulfilling role".<ref>Burgher, p. 115</ref>
===Racism===
Angelou uses the metaphor of a bird struggling to escape its cage described in [[Paul Laurence Dunbar|Paul Laurence Dunbar's]] poem as a "central image" throughout her series of autobiographies.<ref>Lupton, [http://books.google.com/books?id=nBsaFf4qzRQC&pg=PA38&sig=ACfU3U2Ih0rkVvnJa2JG8rNcgsJ9pgBi6Q p. 38]</ref><ref name="difference"/> Like elements within the prison narrative, the caged bird represents Angelou's imprisonment from the racism inherent in Stamps, Arkansas, and her continuing experiences of other forms of imprisonment, like racial discrimination, drugs, marriage, and the economic system.<ref>Lupton, p. 38–39</ref> This metaphor also invokes the "supposed contradiction of the bird singing in the midst of its struggle".<ref name="difference">{{cite web | last = Long | first = Richard | title = 35 who made a difference: Maya Angelou | publisher = Smithsonian.com | date = [[2005-11-01]] | url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/10013086.html | accessdate = 2007-10-25}}</ref>
French writer Valérie Baisnée puts Angelou's autobiographies in the midst of literature written during and about the American [[American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968)|Civil Rights movement]].<ref>Baisnée, [http://books.google.com/books?id=LeG6k36sYSkC&pg=PA62&sig=ACfU3U1tjko4HdTQKk1Sm1TO2pa0hG5hJw p.62]</ref> Critic Mary Jane Lupton states that ''Caged Bird'' "captures the vulgarity of white Southern attitudes toward African Americans". Angelou demonstrates, through her involvement with the black community of Stamps, her developing understanding of the rules for surviving in a racist society, something she is not able to articulate for many years, when she finally writes the book. Angelou also vividly presents racist characters "so real one can feel their presence".<ref>Lupton, p. 63</ref> Her early experiences with racism are so powerful, that in 1982, during an interview with [[Bill Moyers]] in Stamps, she is unable to cross some railroad tracks into the white part of town.<ref>{{cite web | last = Smiley | first = Tavis | title = Bill Moyers | publisher = PBS.org | date = [[2004-05-11]] | url = http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200405/20040511_moyers.html | accessdate = 2008-05-31}}</ref> Critic Pierre A. Walker characterizes Angelou's book as political; he emphasizes that the unity of her autobiographies serves to underscore one of Angelou's central themes: the injustice of racism and how to fight it.<ref name="protest">{{cite journal | last = Walker | first = Pierre A. | title = Racial protest, identity, words, and form in Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | journal = College Literature | volume = 22 | issue = 3 | pages = 91–108 | date = October 1995 | url = http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3709/is_199510/ai_n8723217 | accessdate = 2008-05-24}}</ref> Walker also states that Angelou's biographies, beginning with ''Caged Bird'', consists of "a sequence of lessons about resisting racist oppression".<ref name="protest"/> This sequence leads Angelou, as the protagonist, from "helpless rage and indignation to forms of subtle resistance, and finally to outright and active protest"<ref name="protest"/> throughout all six of her autobiographies.
Walker insists that Angelou's treatment of racism is what gives ''Caged Bird'' its internal thematic unity. The book, like most autobiographies, begins with Angelou's earliest memories, but she relates events non-chronologically. For example, her description of the "powhitetrash" girls that taunt her grandmother occurs in chapter five, when Maya was about ten years old, two years after her rape, which occurs in chapter 12. Maya reacts to the "powhitetrash" incident with "rage, indignation, humiliation, [and] helplessness",<ref name="protest"/> but Mama teaches her how they can maintain their personal dignity and pride while dealing with racism. Walker calls this a "strategy of subtle resistance",<ref name="protest"/> and McPherson calls it "the dignified course of silent endurance".<ref>McPherson (1999), p. 33</ref> Later chapters in ''Caged Bird'' demonstrate the limitations of subtle resistance, but Angelou shows that it serves as a basis for later moving to actively protesting and combating racism. She presents other ways of responding to racism, like when Maya broke the race barrier and became the first black street-car operator, Angelou's description of her eighth-grade graduation, the insensitive treatment of Maya by her white employer, and the dentist scene.<ref name="protest"/> As Walker states, "Momma's type of resistance was fine in its time and place, but now it is time for some real action".<ref name="protest"/>
===Literacy===
[[Image:Tizian 094.jpg|thumb|right|Critic Mary Vermillon has compared Angelou's rape and Shakespeare's "The Rape of Lucrece" (''pictured in a painting by [[Titian]]'')]]
As Lupton says, all of Angelou's autobiographies, especially this volume and the one that follows it, ''[[Gather Together in My Name]]'', is "very much concerned with what [Angelou] knew and how she learned it". Lupton compares Angelou's informal education with the education of other black writers of the 20th century who did not earn a college degree and depended upon the "direct instruction of African American cultural forms".<ref>Lupton, [http://books.google.com/books?id=nBsaFf4qzRQC&pg=PA16&sig=ACfU3U3QQ2qg75h-GKLlCYWcSA5kdhpy6w p. 16]</ref> Angelou is influenced by the writers Mrs. Flowers introduced her to during her period of muteness following her rape, including [[Edgar Allan Poe]] and [[William Shakespeare]] (Angelou states, early in ''Caged Bird'', that she "met and fell in love with William Shakespeare"),<ref>Angelou, p. 13</ref> and by genres like [[slave narratives]], [[spirituals]], poetry, and other autobiographies.<ref>Lupton, [http://books.google.com/books?id=nBsaFf4qzRQC&pg=PA32&sig=ACfU3U0XPBycQl_hVfY3SOgK_Is66pAtPw p. 32]</ref> Critic Mary Vermillon makes a connection between Angelou's rape and Shakespeare's "[[The Rape of Lucrece]]", which Angelou memorizes when she regains her speech, maintaining that Angelou finds comfort in the poem's identification with suffering.<ref>Vermillon (1999), p. 69</ref>
According to Walker, the power of words is another theme that appears repeatedly in ''Caged Bird''. For example, Maya chooses to not speak after her rape, afraid of the destructive power of words, but Mrs. Flowers, by introducing her to classic literature and poetry, teaches her about the positive power of words. This is what empowers Maya to speak again.<ref name="protest"/> As McPherson says, "If there is one stable element in Angelou's youth it is [a] dependence upon books". The public [[library]] is a refuge to which Maya retreats when she experiences crisis.<ref>McPherson (1999), p. 113</ref>
==Style==
Lupton insists that Angelou's use of fiction-writing techniques such as dialogue, characterization, and development of theme, setting, plot, and language often result in the placement of her books into the genre of [[autobiographical fiction]]. According to Lupton, it is useful to label ''Caged Bird'' as a ''[[Bildungsroman]]'', or "coming-of-age" story; she compares it to [[George Eliot|George Eliot's]] ''[[The Mill on the Floss]]''.<ref>Lupton, [http://books.google.com/books?id=nBsaFf4qzRQC&pg=PA30&sig=ACfU3U0bU-xPvz1pTLgPGdf30Cj2T7k12A p. 30]</ref> Angelou characterizes her works as [[autobiographies]],<ref>Lupton, [http://books.google.com/books?id=nBsaFf4qzRQC&pg=PA30&sig=ACfU3U0bU-xPvz1pTLgPGdf30Cj2T7k12A p. 29–30]</ref> but as Lauret has stated, Angelou has placed herself in this genre while critiquing it.<ref>Lupton, p.98</ref>
As with most autobiographies, Angelou uses the first-person narrative voice, in spite of its fiction-like aspects, told from the perspective of a child that is "artfully recreated by an adult narrator".<ref>Lupton, [http://books.google.com/books?id=nBsaFf4qzRQC&pg=PA52&sig=ACfU3U1qtk4nFWPr_vUjBv9xGbv4dlQvQg p. 52]</ref> Scholar Joanne M. Braxton sees the book as "representative of autobiographies written by black women in the post-civil rights era".<ref> Braxton, p. 63</ref> ''Caged Bird'' presents themes that are common in autobiography by black American women: the celebration of black motherhood, the criticism of racism, the importance of family, and the quest for self-sufficiency, personal dignity, and self-definition.<ref>Braxton, p. 64</ref> Angelou recognizes that there are fictional aspects to her books; she tends to "diverge from the conventional notion of autobiography as truth",<ref>Lupton, p. 34</ref> which parallels the conventions of much of African American autobiography written during the [[abolitionist]] period of US history, when the truth was censored out of the need for self-protection.<ref>Sartwell, p. 26</ref> At the same time, however, Angelou introduces a unique point of view in American autobiography by revealing her life story through a narrator who is a black female, at some points a child and other points a mother.<ref>Lupton, p. 52–53</ref>
The challenge for much of African-American literature is that its authors have had to confirm its status as literature, which is why Robert Loomis was able to dare Angelou into writing ''Caged Bird'' by challenging her to write an autobiography that could be considered "high art".<ref name="protest"/> According to Angelou, her friend James Baldwin had a "covert hand" in getting her to write the book, and advised Loomis to use "a little reverse psychology".<ref>{{cite news | last = Neary | first = Lynn | title = At 80, Maya Angelou reflects on a 'glorious' life | publisher = NPR | date = [[2008-04-06]] | url = http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89355359 | accessdate = 2008-05-29}}</ref> As Walker insists, when Angelou wrote the book at the end of the 1960s, one of the necessary and accepted features of literature was thematic unity, and one of her goals was to create a book that satisfied that criteria. The events in her books are crafted like a series of short stories, but their arrangements do not follow a strict chronology. Instead, they are placed to emphasize the themes of her books. Walker believes that Angelou succeeded, in spite of the otherwise episodic quality of the narrative. <ref name="protest"/>
Loomis has been Angelou's editor throughout her writing career.<ref> {{cite news | last = Arnold | first = Martin | title = Making books; Familiarity breeds content | work = New York Times | date = [[2001-04-12]] | url = http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9801E0D91731F931A25757C0A9679C8B63&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/T/Tyler,%20Anne | accessdate = 2007-10-11}}</ref> Beginning with ''Caged Bird'', she has used the same "writing ritual"<ref>Lupton, p.15</ref> for many years. She gets up at five in the morning and checks into a hotel room, where the staff has been instructed to remove any pictures from the walls. She writes on legal pads while lying on the bed, with only a bottle of sherry, a deck of cards to play [[solitaire]], ''[[Roget's Thesaurus]]'', and the [[Bible]], and leaves by the early afternoon. She averages 10-12 pages of material a day, which she edits down to three or four pages in the evening.<ref> {{Citation | last = Sarler | first = Carol | contribution = A life in the day of Maya
Angelou | year = 1989 | title = Conversations with Maya Angelou | editor-last = Elliot | editor-first = Jeffrey M. | place = Jackson, MI | publisher = University Press | isbn = 0-8780-5362-X}} </ref>
==Reception==
===Critical reception and sales===
[[Image:Jamesbaldwin.jpg|thumb|right|James Baldwin (1955), Angelou's friend and mentor, he was instrumental in the publication of ''Caged Bird''.]]
''I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'' has been called Maya Angelou's "magnum opus" and "a modern classic among young adult and adult readers".<ref name="cliffsnotes">{{cite web | title = About the novel: Critical assessment | publisher = Cliffs Notes | url = http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/I-Know-Why-the-Caged-Bird-Sings.id-24,pageNum-7.html | accessdate = 2007-10-22 }}</ref> Poet James Bertolino asserts that ''Caged Bird'' "is one of the essential books produced by our culture, and we should all read it, especially our children".<ref>Bertolino, p. 199</ref> It was nominated for a [[National Book Award]] in 1970;<ref>Cullinan & Person, [http://books.google.com/books?id=0LyutQg6mroC&pg=PA36&sig=ACfU3U320AdBj_QhQiPfLrNM8j3F3I5UhQ p. 36]</ref> in 1995, Angelou's publishing company, [[Bantam Books]], recognized her for having the longest-running record (two years) on ''[[The New York Times]]'' paperback nonfiction bestseller list.<ref>{{cite web | title = Biography Information | publisher = Maya Angelou Official Website | url = http://www.mayaangelou.com/LongBio.html | accessdate = 2007-10-24}}</ref> One of ''Caged Bird's'' most outspoken praises comes from [[James Baldwin]], Angelou's friend and mentor: "This testimony from a black sister marks the beginning of an era in the minds and hearts and lives of all black men and women ... Her portrait is a Biblical study of life in the midst of death".<ref name="cliffsnotes"/> ''Caged Bird'' catapulted Angelou to international fame, critical acclaim, and "heralded the success of other now prominent [black women] writers".<ref>Baisnée, [http://books.google.com/books?id=LeG6k36sYSkC&pg=PA56&sig=ACfU3U3PllKuOT79YcM47LexDUSJsFafMA p. 56]</ref>
There has been one film version of ''I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'', which aired on [[April 28]], [[1979]] and was filmed in [[Vicksburg, Mississippi]]. Angelou and Leonora Thuna wrote the screenplay and it was directed by [[Fielder Cook]]. Constance Good played young Maya; also appearing in this [[made for TV]] movie was [[Esther Rolle]], [[Roger E. Mosley]], [[Diahann Carroll]], [[Ruby Dee]], and [[Madge Sinclair]].<ref>{{cite news | last = Erickson | first = Hal | title = I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1979) | work = New York Times | url = http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/24064/I-Know-Why-the-Caged-Bird-Sings/overview | accessdate = 2008-07-17}}</ref> There were two scenes in the movie that differed from events described in the book. Angelou adds a scene between Maya and Uncle Willie after the [[Joe Lewis]] fight; he expresses his feelings of redemption after Lewis has defeated a white opponent.<ref>Lupton, p. 59</ref> Angelou presents her eighth grade graduation differently in the film as well. In the book, Henry Reed delivers the [[valedictory]] speech and leads the black audience in the Negro national anthem, but in the movie, Maya does.<ref>Lupton, p. 64</ref>
In her 1999 essay, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read", author [[Francine Prose]] criticized ''Caged Bird'' as "manipulative melodrama"<ref>{{cite news | last = Italie | first = Hillel | title = Renowned artist Maya Angelou still has life by the horns | publisher = Associated Press | date = [[2008-03-30]] | url = http://www.courierpress.com/news/2008/Mar/30/renowned-artist-maya-angelou-still-has-life-by/ | accessdate = 2008-05-12}}</ref> and "overrated".<ref>{{cite news | last = Kachka| first = Boris | title = Meet the Prose | work = The New York Times Magazine | date = [[2005-02-28]] | url = http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/books/reviews/11214/ | accessdate = 2008-05-12}}</ref>
===Censorship===
''Caged Bird'' has been criticized by many parents, causing its removal from school [[curricula]] and library shelves. "Parents, schools and related organizations have argued that the book encourages deviant behavior because of its references to lesbianism, premarital sex, cohabitation, pornography and violence".<ref> {{cite web | title = Maya Angelou, I know why the caged bird sings | publisher = National Coalition Against Censorship | url = http://www.thefileroom.org/documents/dyn/DisplayCase.cfm/id/796 | accessdate = 2007-10-23 }}</ref> Censors have also been critical of its "sexually explicit scenes, foul language, and irreverent religious depictions".<ref>Foerstel, p. [http://books.google.com/books?id=KjbxM4CshdIC&pg=PA195&sig=ACfU3U3XQtjYXtX1f16TtH5yxcePF_HJvg 195–196]</ref> As a result, ''Caged Bird'' has been the frequent target of [[censors]] and appears third on the [[American Library Association]] list of the 100 Most Frequently [[Challenge (literature)|Challenged]] Books of 1990–2000.<ref> {{cite web | title = The 100 most frequently challenged books of 1990–2000 | publisher = American Library Association | url = http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlinks/100mostfrequently.htm | accessdate = 2007-10-22 }}</ref> The book appears fifth on the ALA's list of the ten most challenged books of 21st century (2000–2005).<ref> {{cite web | title = Harry Potter tops list of most challenged books of 21st century | publisher = American Library Association | url = http://www.ala.org/ala/pressreleases2006/september2006/harrypottermostchallenge.cfm | accessdate = 2008-06-14}}</ref>
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==Notes==
{{reflist|3}}
==References==
* Angelou, Maya (1969). ''I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings''. New York: [[Random House]]. ISBN 0-375-50789-2
* Baisnée, Valérie (1994). ''Gendered resistance: The autobiographies of Simone de Beauvoir, Maya Angelou, Janet Frame and Marguerite Duras''. Amsterdam: [[Rodopi Publishers|Rodopi]]. ISBN 90-420-0109-7
* Bertolino, James (1996). "Maya Angelou is three writers". In ''Modern critical interpretations: Maya Angelou's I know why the caged bird sings'', Harold Bloom, ed. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. ISBN 0-7910-4773-3
* Bloom, Harold. (2004). ''Maya Angelou's I know why the caged bird sings''. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. ISBN 0-7910-7562-1
* Braxton, Joanne M. (2004). "Black autobiography". In ''Maya Angelou's I know why the caged bird sings'', Harold Bloom, ed. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. ISBN 0-7910-7562-1
* Burgher, Mary (1979). "Images of self and race in the autobiographies of black women". In ''Sturdy Black Bridges'', Roseann P. Bell, et al, ed. Garden City, N.Y.: [[Doubleday (publisher)|Doubleday]]. ISBN 0-3851-3347-2
* Cullinan, Bernice E. & Diane Goetz Person, eds. "Angelou, Maya". In '' The Continuum Encyclopedia of Children's Literature''. Continuum International Publishing Group (2003). ISBN 0-8264-1778-7.
* Foerstel, Herbert N. (2002). ''Banned in the U.S.A.: A reference guide to book censorship in schools and public libraries''. Westport, Connecticut: [[Greenwood Press]]. ISBN 1-5931-1374-9
* Lauret, Maria (1994). ''Liberating literature: Feminist fiction in America''. New York: [[Routledge]]. ISBN 0-4150-6515-1
* Lupton, Mary Jane (1998). ''Maya Angelou: A critical companion''. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-30325-8
* McPherson, Dolly A. (1990). ''Order out of chaos: The autobiographical works of Maya Angelou''. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. ISBN 0-820411-39-6
* McPherson, Dolly A. (1999). "Initiation and self-discovery". In ''Maya Angelou's I know why the caged bird sings: A casebook'', Joanne M. Braxton, ed. New York: Oxford Press. ISBN 0-1951-1606-2
* Smith, Sidonie Ann (2004). "Angelou's quest for self-acceptance". In ''Maya Angelou's I know why the caged bird sings'', Harold Bloom, ed. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. ISBN 0-7910-7562-1
* Vermillion, Mary (1999). "Reimbodying the self: Representations of rape in ''Incidents in the life of a slave girl'' and ''I know why the caged bird sings''". In ''Maya Angelou's I know why the caged bird sings: A casebook'', Joanne M. Braxton, ed. New York: Oxford Press. ISBN 0-1951-1606-2
* Vermillion, Mary (2004). "Angelou's representations of rape". In ''Maya Angelou's I know why the caged bird sings'', Harold Bloom, ed. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. ISBN 0-7910-7562-1
[[Category:1969 novels]]
[[Category:African American novels]]
[[Category:African American autobiographies]]
[[pt:I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings]]