Strategy For Survival: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: A Study of Maya Angelou

Abstract

Maya Angelou's debut autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), has been dubbed "probably the most aesthetically gratifying autobiography written in the immediate aftermath of the Civil Rights era" (Braxton 4). It describes Angelou’s life from age three to seventeen and dismantles the stereotypethat the lives of the black women are not worthy to be known. The book establishes the fact that the black women are in no way less than the women of any other origin and their struggle is an inspiration to the world. With its coming-of-age story, it was hailed as a work in the convention of Bildungsroman, a class of novel that focuses on the psychological and moral growth and evolution of the central figure. The book reads more like an autobiographical novel describing the story of Angelou’s life and growth in a manner that it seems not just her own story, but that of all African Americans.