"I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings"

As I read Maya Angelou's novel, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", I couldn't help but think about all the factors that affect a person's life growing up.  Through this novel the reader follows Marguerite and her brother Bailey as they grow from innocent children and move into adulthood. 

Racial discrimination played a major role in this story.  But what surprised me was I found myself thinking that how people respond to discrimination can have as great an impact as the discrimination itself.  The reason I say that is I saw what a strong person "Momma" (actually Marguerite and Bailey's grandmother) was and how her attitude allowed her to create a more nurturing environment for the children than they received when they lived with their parents

Momma provided her grandchildren with a strict religious upbringing.  She took the children to Sunday service, often quoted the bible and prayed daily.  An example of her daily prayer can be found on page 7 in which Momma thanks the Lord for another day and asks his help as she lives out the new day.  She would not allow the Lord's name be taken in vain in her home.  As a result she gave Marguerite (Maya) a whipping one evening because she had used a White folk phrase "by the way", which Momma took to be "an abomination before Christ" (p 102).

Momma showed her love daily by making sure the children had food to eat.  She showed a desire to raise them to productive members of society.  She did this by making them attend school and helping out in the store.

During the discussions that took place in the store, Maya heard of the discrimination of others but she also experienced it first-hand.  One example, early on in the book on pages 18 and 19, she had to assist Uncle Willie in forcing his crippled body into the vegetable bins in an attempt to hide from a possible visit by the KKK.  In chapter 16, Maya dealt with Mrs. Cullinan wanting to change her name to Mary because it was shorter and thus more convenient to say than Marguerite.  She had to put up with the pain of infected teeth longer than necessary because the white dentist refused to put his hand in a "negro's" mouth.  Even her graduation ceremony from eighth grade was tarnished because the speaker who was a white man reminded them of their place in the world. 

All of those experiences had to be difficult to deal with.  But through it all, Momma stood as a shining example of remaining proud of whom you were and standing up for yourself.  When the dentist refused to treat her granddaughter, Momma did not leave with her head down.  Instead, she barged into the dentist's office and let him have it.  As a result, she left the office a respected woman; respected by the dentist, her granddaughter and herself.  Likewise, when the “powhitetrash” kids came to the store to ridicule Momma, she stood her ground.  She refused to let their antics upset her and stood with folded arms singing.  When the girls went to leave, Momma called them each by name, refusing to stoop to their behavior (p 30-33).  Maya did not understand it all but she understood enough to know that Momma had gotten the upper hand.  "Whatever the contest had been out front, I knew Momma had won" (p 33).

When Marguerite lived in Stamp, Arkansas with Momma she saw discrimination daily.  But she also saw how Momma and others around her did not let it defeat them.  During her graduation ceremony, she saw how a simple song, the Negro National Anthem, could pick spirits back up.  She watched people enter the store exhausted from the day’s work and then become revitalized during a revival.  She saw the spirit of her people rise above the pain of discrimination.

So although facing discrimination was not easy, she had role models to help her through.  However, when she lived with her mother or father, she experienced different kinds of pain that were not limited to discrimination.  I couldn't help but wonder if Maya had remained with her grandmother, Momma, if life might have turned out differently for her and if so how.

The first time Maya moved back to live with her mother it was in St. Louis.  During this time, Maya had to endure the physical and emotional pain of being raped at the young age of 7 by her mother's boyfriend Mr. Freeman.  What made this rape even more heart wrenching was Maya's desire to be held and loved.  "He held me so softly that I wished he wouldn't ever let me go."  I believe this statement shows that discrimination was a factor in Maya's life as she grew up but an even stronger factor was her desire to be held and loved.  She had never received this from her father or any other male figure before in her life.  I also believe this lack of a true loving male in her childhood is what left her questioning her sexuality near the end of the novel.  What little attention she had received from males in her life was not positive so it should not be a surprise that she questioned her feelings toward the male gender.

The short time Maya spent living at her father's during summer vacation turned into more of a nightmare.  What she thought would be a fun trip to Mexico was anything but that.  Her father offered to give her in marriage to the border patrol.  Then he became so drunk she had to drive them down the mountain.  Upon returning to her father's trailer she was cut by his jealous girlfriend.  Too ashamed to let her mother know how her relationship with her father ended, she spent the next month living in a junkyard.

If I were to choose a life between living with Momma in Stamp or living with Mother or Daddy, I would have picked Momma.  Although Momma did not often hug Maya, her actions showed her love for her.  Maya's real parents, on the other hand, seemed to be more concerned about themselves than about their daughter.  I think this lack of love can be just more painful, if not more, to live with than racial discrimination.