MAkalah Prose

Why The Caged Birds Sings ” By Maya Angelou.

PREFACE

First, thanks to God for the chance that God has given to us to finish this paper. This paper arrange for complete our task about analyzing of novel. The novel is “ Why The Caged Birds Sings ” By Maya Angelou. The purpose of this paper is to understand about How to analyze the novel.

If the paper is not perfect or consist something wrong, so the writer apologized about it. Thanks for the attention, I hope this paper can useful for the reader.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Why the caged birds sings is a novel by Maya Angelou at publish  1969 that tell about a racism, Maya tell about the effect of racism in america, and diferencess between black skin and white skin where the white skin is better than black skin. beside that, this is a good novel because the story based on experience of the author.

In this novel Maya Angelou speaks in the first person as she recounts her childhood. She writes both from a child’s point of view and from her perspective as an adult.

This story start from Maya’s parents divorce; Maya and Bailey are sent to Stamps; Maya and Bailey move in with their mother in St. Louis; Maya is raped; Maya and Bailey return to Stamps; Bailey witnesses a victim of lynching; Maya and Bailey move to San Francisco to live with Vivian; Maya spends the summer with her father

And then Maya runs away from her father, displaying her first true act of self-reliance and independence after a lifelong struggle with feelings of inferiority and displacement; here, she displaces herself intentionally, leading to important lessons she learns about humanity while in the junkyard community

Finally, Maya lives for a month in the junkyard with a group of homeless teenagers; she becomes San Francisco’s first black streetcar conductor; she becomes pregnant; she graduates high school; she gives birth to a son and gains confidence

CHAPTER II

DISCUSSION

Analize the novel

1.   Thema

Thema of this novel about racism and segregation. Maya confronts the insidious effects of racism and segregation in America at a very young age. She internalizes the idea that blond hair is beautiful and that she is a fat black girl trapped in a nightmare. Stamps, Arkansas, is so thoroughly segregated that as a child Maya does not quite believe that white people exist. These unjust social realities confine and demean Maya and her relatives. She comes to learn how the pressures of living in a thoroughly racist society have profoundly shaped the character of her family members, and she strives to surmount them.

Besides that they Resistance to Racism Black peoples’ resistance to racism takes many forms in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Momma maintains her dignity by seeing things realistically and keeping to herself. Big Bailey buys flashy clothes and drives a fancy car to proclaim his worth and runs around with women to assert his masculinity in the face of dehumanizing and emasculating racism.

1.     Plot

In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou describes her coming of age as a precocious but insecure black girl in the American South during the 1930s and subsequently in California during the 1940s. Maya’s parents divorce when she is only three years old and ship Maya and her older brother, Bailey, to live with their paternal grandmother, Annie Henderson, in rural Stamps, Arkansas. Annie, whom they call Momma, runs the only store in the black section of Stamps and becomes the central moral figure in Maya’s childhood.

As young children, Maya and Bailey struggle with the pain of having been rejected and abandoned by their parents. Maya also finds herself tormented by the belief that she is an ugly child who will never measure up to genteel, white girls.

Growing up in Stamps, Maya faces a deep-seated southern racism manifested in wearying daily indignities and terrifying lynch mobs.

Maya endures several appalling incidents that teach her about the insidious nature of racism. At age ten, Maya takes a job for a white woman who calls Maya “Mary” for her own convenience. Maya becomes enraged and retaliates by breaking the woman’s fine china. At Maya’s eighth grade graduation, a white speaker devastates the proud community by explaining that black students are expected to become only athletes or servants.

When Maya is thirteen, the family moves to live with Vivian in Los Angeles and then in Oakland, California. When Vivian marries Daddy Clidell, a positive father figure, they move with him to San Francisco, the first city where Maya feels at home. She spends one summer with her father.

2.     Character

§  Maya Angelou Maya Angelou named Marguerite Ann Johnson at birth writes about her experiences growing up as a black girl in the rural South and in the cities of St. Louis, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Maya has an unusual degree of curiosity and perceptiveness. Haunted by her displacement from her biological parents and her sense that she is ugly, Maya often isolates herself, escaping into her reading. Angelou’s autobiography traces the start of her development into an independent, wise, and compassionate woman.

§  Bailey Johnson, Jr. Maya’s older brother. Like Maya, he is intelligent and mature beyond his age.

§  Annie Henderson (Momma) Maya and Bailey’s paternal grandmother. Momma raises them for most of their childhood. She owns the only store in the black section of Stamps, Arkansas, and it serves as the central gathering place for the black community.

§  Vivian Baxter Bailey and Maya’s mother. Vivian and Momma have very different values, they are both strong, supportive women. A somewhat inattentive mother, Vivian nevertheless treats her children with love and respect.

§  Big Bailey Johnson  Maya and Bailey’s father. Despite his lively personality, he is handsome, vain, and selfish.

§  Willy Johnson Momma’s son, who is in his thirties. Crippled in a childhood accident, Uncle Willy lives his entire life with Momma. He suffers insults and jokes because of his disability.he is a devout Christian too, and he acts as the children’s disciplinarian and protector.

§  Daddy Clidell Vivian’s second husband, he is A successful businessman despite his lack of education, he remains modest and confident.

§  Mr. Freeman he is sexually molests and rapes Maya.

§  Mrs. Bertha Flowers  A black aristocrat living in Stamps, Arkansas. One of Maya’s idols, she becomes the first person to prod Maya out of her silence after Maya’s rape, taking an interest in Maya and making her feel special. Maya respects Mrs. Flowers mainly for encouraging her love of literature. Mrs. Viola Cullinan A Southern white woman in Stamps and Maya’s first employer.

§  Glory  (Formerly Hallelujah) Mrs. Cullinan’s cook. A descendent of the slaves once owned by the Cullinan family, her acceptance of Mrs. Cullinan’s condescending and racist renaming practices contrasts with Maya’s resistance.

§  Mr. Edward Donleavy  A white speaker at Maya’s eighth-grade graduation ceremony.

§  Louise Kendricks Maya’s first friend outside her family. When she is with Louise, Maya is able to escape her troubles and play like a child should. Tommy Valdon An eighth-grader who writes Maya a valentine.

§  Joyce -  Bailey’s first love.

§  Dr. Lincoln A white dentist in Stamps

§  Miss Kirwin Maya’s teacher in San Francisco. Miss Kirwin treats Maya like an equal human being, regardless of her color

a.      Setting

The multiple settings in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in which Marguerite acquires her diversified knowledge of people and culture also highlight the difficulties she has in integrating her experiences into a single philosophy and identity. But by the end of the book the reader feels that she knows who she is and what she wants in life. What the reader can't know is how far she may stray from this identity before she discovers her true self. Setting place in Stamps, Arkansas; St. Louis, Missouri; Oakland, California; San Francisco, California, and For the setting time this novel used 1930s–1950s

b.     Point of View

Although I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is often referred to as an autobiography, Angelou's use of novelistic techniques makes literary study of the work a valuable endeavor.

Throughout I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, we see people, places, and events through the imagination of Marguerite. While she often keeps her own counsel, she carries on a private dialogue with herself that is in turn poetic, humorous, sardonic, and tragic. Gifted with the ability to see through shams and affectations, she cuts through to the quick of her observations. She knows intuitively what is real and what is phony, and she processes all this information intellectually over her growing-up years and gradually forms a positive self-image. The shy, awkward child becomes the determined, talented young adult.

Maya Angelou speaks in the first person as she recounts her childhood. She writes both from a child’s point of view and from her perspective as an adult.

c.      Biographi

Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Annie Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri. Her parents divorced when she was only three and she was sent with her younger brother Bailey to live with their grandmother in the small town of Stamps, Arkansas. In Stamps, the young girl experienced the racial discrimination that was the legally enforced way of life in the American South, but she also absorbed the deep religious faith and old-fashioned courtesy of traditional African American life.

At age seven, while visiting her mother in Chicago, she was sexually molested by her mother's boyfriend. Maya began to speak again at 13, when she and her brother rejoined their mother in San Francisco.

In 1952, she married a Greek sailor named Anastasios Angelopulos. When she began her career as a nightclub singer, she took the professional name Maya Angelou, combining her childhood nickname with a form of her husband's name. Although the marriage did not last, her performing career flourished. She toured Europe with a production of the opera Porgy and Bess in 1954 and 1955. She studied modern dance with Martha Graham, danced with Alvin Ailey on television variety shows and recorded her first record album, Calypso Lady (1957).

Since 1981, Angelou has served as Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She has continued to appear on television and in films including Poetic Justice (1993) and the landmark television adaptation of Roots (1977). She has directed numerous dramatic and documentary programs on television and directed her first feature film, Down in the Delta, in 1996.The list of her published works now includes more than 30 titles. These include numerous volumes of verse, beginning with Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Die (1971). Books of her stories and essays include Wouldn't Take Nothing For My Journey Now (1993) and Even the Stars Look Lonesome (1997). She has continued the compelling narrative of her life in the books Gather Together in My Name (1974), Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas (1976), The Heart of a Woman (1981), All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (1987) and A Song Flung Up to Heaven (2002).

In 1991, 1994 and 1997, Maya Angelou participated in a series of live broadcasts for Achievement Television in which she took questions submitted by students from across the United States. The interview with Maya Angelou on this web site has been condensed from these broadcasts.

CHAPTER III

CLOSING

Conclusion

The conclusion is we can get many knowledge and information about american cultuture that racism between black and white skin, Maya as a black feel not confidence with herself. She experienced racial discrimination that was the legally enforced way of life in the American South, but she also absorbed the deep religious faith and old-fashioned courtesy of traditional African American life.