I know why the caged bird sings

The title refers to the lack of freedom.

This is the story told by the protagonist as a narration of Marguerite and Bailey Johnson left at the early age by their parents to live in parental grandmother. They came at Stamps Arkansas in the middle of the Negro area by train when Marguerite was only three and her brother four. They grew up by their grandmother “Momma” as she called her. And her Momma had a store in the village and managed it with her other son who was somehow disable.

They work a lot and Momma is a kind of mobile lunch counter.  The girl grew up loving the books especially Shakespeare but she won’t tell to her Momma because he is white even if he is dead. Momma had some rules for them they were mostly commandment ‘Not to be dirty and not to be impudent’. No matter the temperatures outside, they have to wash their faces, arms and feet before going to bed. Poor who dare do disobey those rules. But the question that Marguerite made herself was why Momma let those white dirty girls being so impudent to her and after leaving she said to them ‘Miz’ and calling by their names. It was contradictory. But Momma has always said to Marguerite and Bailey: ‘the less say to white-folk the better’’.  

Momma is strong enough even when they  have thought about her as cowardly and not respond to the mocking of white people but she says just that she is realistic and it was for that she had managed to stand before ‘them’ until the present days. Also with a little boast she repeats the fact that she was the only woman called Mrs. And a woman who possesses a store and managed it by her own.

The novel is about the persecution of Negros even in their home. It is said that the white in their village were so ‘’prejudiced that a Negro couldn’t buy a vanilla ice-cream except for the fourth July.  They had to be satisfied with chocolate.’’(Chapter 6, p 46). Even in the simply things of life they have to be treated by their colour. The racism is a strong emotion in the novel and it is treated in the eyes of a thirteen year old girl. This feeling make her sometimes ‘escapes’ in a fairy world where she had white colour skin and fairy hair with blue eyes. She finds the colour of the skin as ‘guilty’ of prohibiting a lot of basic things. She was a literary girl because she reads lots of books and had another perspective to see the world. And this was not likeable.

The return to her father was another chapter on her life. A father who she thought about him as being dead because there could not have other reason of letting her unknown about him. Bailey was more affected by the arrival of father and excited to know their mother. It was not the same for Maya. She hated to move away from that nest and go to another world where she felt of not belonging to.

She became raped from the partner of her mother Mr. Freeman. What kind of ironic is expressed by his name as a freeman. Free to do what he wants. After hearing about her rapist had been kicked to death she decided to stop talking because it was for the words that came out her mouth that man found the death. So she felt guilty and blamed herself for what happened to him.  It was because of her teacher Mrs. Flowers who encouraged her of getting use of the words. It was long way of recovering her from that experience and to gain self-confident. After being graduated from high school she becomes a mother. Maybe finally she could be the mother she never had.