Two-part Reading Response: " I know why the caged bird sings"

Plot:
Maya and Bailey are simblings. They have been rejected and abadoned by their parents since Maya was 3 years old and Bailey 4. They went to live with their grandmother, Annie Henderson. Maya has always been judged by others.
 * When she was reciting a poem in church and was unable to finish it, people started making fun of her.
 * When their father took both of them to live with their mother, Vivian, their mother's live-in boyfriend molested Maya sexually and raped her.
 * At her eighth grade graduation, a white speaker said that black students were expected to become only atheletes or servants.
 * When she got a rotten tooth, her grandmother took her to the only dentist in Stamps, who insulted her saying that he would rather place his hand in a dogs mouth than in hers.
Despite this, Maya was supported by Bailey, grandmother and Bertha Flowers who gave her books of poetry that helped her to regain her voice.
When her mother married with Daddy Clidell, she went to live with them and spent the summer with her stepfather. But his girlfriend cut her in a fight. She run away and lived with a stray group of teenagers for a month.
At 16 she hid her pregnancy from her parents for 8 months and graduated from high school.
It ended when Maya bagan feeling confident as a mother to her newborn son.
Comment:
If we look throught the title we can understand that 'the caged bird' is the symbol that Maya Angelou has used to symbolize herself and other people like her.
She has always been segregating from others because of her skin color (what nowadays is called racism). 'The caged bird' refers to the lack of freedom, that means black people have not the right to choose even for their lifes. They don't deserve to be servered, too, but they must serve.
Example 1: When white speaker said that black students were expected to become only athletes or servants.
Example 2: When the dentist said he wojld rather place his hand in a dog's mouth than hers.
The group of words 'the caged bird sings' means that even though they have not any right, this is still not enought to stop them from rising their voices against the injustices like Maya Angelou did.
Even though she was tormented when she was young, she found the way to deal with everyone, and to become independent from others.

Two part reading response:" I know why the caged bird sings" by Maya Angelou 

In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou describes her life as an insecure black girl in California during the 40’s. Maya’s parents get divorced when she is only three years old and send Maya and her brother, Bailey, to live with their paternal grandmother, Annie Henderson, who runs a store in the rural area of  Stamps, Arkansas. Maya suffers due to her black skin and thinks that she is very ugly compared to white girls but she also doesn’t feel equal to other black children. When Maya is eight, her father, who she doesn’t remember at all, arrives in Stamps and takes her and Bailey to live with their mother, Vivian, in St. Louis, Missouri. Vivian works in gambling parlors and one morning her friend, Mr. Freeman, sexually molests Maya, and he later rapes her. They go to court and then Mr. Freeman is murdered in a horrible way. Maya has to live with the shame of having been sexually abused. She also believes that she is somehow responsible for Mr. Freeman’s death because she denied in court that he had molested her before the rape. Now she believes that everything she says has consequences, so she stops speaking to everyone except Bailey. Maya and Bailey return to Stamps to live with Momma, who introduces her to Mrs. Bertha Flowers, a kind-hearted woman who tells Maya to read works of literature out loud, giving her books of poetry that help her to regain her voice. During her life Maya goes through several incidents that teach her about the tremendous nature of racism. At age ten, Maya takes a job for a white woman who calls her “Mary” for her own convenience. Maya gets very angry and breaks the woman’s fine china. At Maya’s eighth grade graduation, a white speaker puts down the black community by explaining that black students are expected to become only athletes or servants.  The thing that makes everything worse is the time when Bailey encounters a dead, black man and witnesses a white man’s satisfaction at seeing the body. Momma begins to fear for the children’s well-being and saves money to bring them to Vivian, who now lives in California.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 kind man, they move with him to San Francisco, the first city where Maya feels at home. She spends one summer with her father, Big Bailey, in Los Angeles and has to put up with his indifference and his evil girlfriend, Dolores. After Dolores cuts her in a fight, Maya runs away and lives for a month with a group of homeless teenagers in a junkyard. She returns to San Francisco and at sixteen she hides her pregnancy from her mother and stepfather for eight months and graduates from high school. The story ends as Maya begins to feel confident as a mother to her newborn son.

Maya Angelou's story certainly demonstrates the struggles which a black girl had to pass back in the days when black people were humiliated by others and were used as slaves. This is a fine demonstration that black people were seen not as people and definitely were not treated as ones either. She has written about the difficulties of that time and the bad conditions and circumstances that wouldn't let anyone get out of the stuggles they were experiencing. The fact that even the justice or government would't protect and defend black people is a sign of a deep racism carved in all of the society. There had to pass years and years for slavery to come to an end and for people to be less racist. Anyway, Maya basically had to move from place to place in order to be safe and not risk her life. I bet she never felt free to do what she wanted to or have a normal life like others. I really like the fact that the author has felt the need to share her story and be so open about it because besides helping fight racism it has inspired many people who have been victims of different incidents not to stay quiet but speak about it and make sure that justice is served.

Two part reading response' I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings' by Maya Angelou.

Two-part reading response: ‘I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings’ by Maya Angelou.

In the I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings Maya Angelou tells the story of her life up to the birth of her child. She faces many hardships in her life. She describes her coming of age as a precocious but terrible black girl. Maya has a little brother named Bailey. As children they suffered the most from the divorce of their parents, they struggle with pain of having been abandoned by their parents. She was sent to live with her grandmother ‘Annie Henderson’. This is not the only thing that happened to her she find herself tormented by the belief that she is ugly child. She does not feel equal from white child but also different from black children. Growing up in Stamps she faced with racism. That tormented her during her life. When she went to visit her mother she is raped by her mother’s friend ‘Mr. Freemen’, who later on was murdered probably by someone from Maya’s family member. She faced racism in society and school where she is discriminated by the speaker. When Maya spend the summer in San Francisco with her father, Dolores, daddy’s girlfriend cuts her in a fight. She runs away and fined herself in a junkyard. Living there with some other people she started to have doubt about her development as a woman and she decides to have sex and try to work out a relationship with one of two brothers who live near her home. Some weeks later she fined herself pregnant. No one knows about her pregnancy except her brother who helped her. The book ends with Maya accepting the care and support of the child she loves.

Maya Angelou through her book ‘I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings’ shows her life experience, which is not at all happy. She suffers since her childhood and throughout her life she faced different problems. Since her childhood she struggled with herself, believing she is ugly, as having skinny legs, big feet, and a gap between teeth. It is scared that she grow up confronted with personal incidents of racism, the consequences were tremendous and her mental health was destroyed. In school she was an excellent student but she was offended by the white speaker there. The speaker was expressed that black students are expected to become only athletes or servants. It is unacceptable to face racism for healthy problems. A white dentist insults her by saying that he’d rather place his hands in a dog’s mouth than in hers. This is a trouble to think that even you are ill you are not respected. The only thing that gives Maya courage was her brother and grandmother. Momma was able to discuss with the dentist about his behavior with Maya and she asked him to apologize Maya. Maya was not accepted not only by the society but even from her family. Her mother and father lives with their boyfriend and girlfriend. No one accept to live with Maya, she just visit them sometimes but the in the first time she visit them faced tremendous experiences . Her daddy’s girlfriends ‘Dolores’ was jealous for Maya, she cut her in a fight . When she visits her mother she was raped by Mr. Freemen. When she lived in a junkyard she started believing that she is not developing normally as a woman. From all this experiences she believes that something goes wrong. This opinion leads her to have sex and three weeks later she fined herself pregnant. What makes me feel story about her was their poor relationship as a family. She is not supported by her family. The most wonderful thing here was that a new human being was coming in this world. She really wants him to born and takes care after him. This is the end of the story, she started to feel confident that she will become a better mother than hers.              

Two part reading response: Beloved by Toni Morrison

Beloved, is a novel wtitten by Toni Morrison, based on the true story of a black slave. Sethe was married to Halle during the time she was a slave in the " Sweet Home" the play they stayed during their slavery. After their owner Mr Garner died The sweet home was taken over by a man named " school teacher". He treated them like animals, so they decided to run away. She used to take her children into the woods and intended to kill them, she thought it would be better if they die than being slavs and sexually abused. So she killed one of them. After 20 years of that incident, one lady appeared at her door. Sethe locked herself and started blaming and loving in guilt. After Paul D returning, he tried to convince that what she did past now. In my opinion, what Sethe did was just a mother instict, she couldn't see her children living and being abused as slaves as her personal experiences so she decided to kill them in act of supreme love.

Two part reading response: “I know why the caged bird sings” by Maya Angelou

Two part reading response: “I know why the caged bird sings” by Maya Angelou

The title refers to the lack of freedom. This is the story told by the protagonist Marguerite (Maya). She and Bailey Johnson left at the early age by their parents to live in their parental grandmother; “Momma” as she called her. They were grew up by her. They came at Stamps Arkansas in the middle of the Negro area by train when Marguerite was only three and her brother four.  There, she learns the harshness and reality of prejudice, discrimination and racism. Her Momma had a store in the village, which gave her a good reputation. 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. It is clear that racism was present in those days , but she know how to combat it, because she is a strong woman; 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 color. The racism is a strong emotion in the novel and it is treated in the eyes of a thirteen-year-old girl, who suffer from the lack of freedom to do what she wants. This leads to strong emotion and introduces us a hard life that racism causes and the bad things it brings. It is so unfair to treat a person based on the color of his skin. This feeling make her sometimes ‘escapes’ in a fairy world where she had white color skin and fairy hair with blue eyes. She finds the color of the skin as ‘guilty’ of prohibiting a lot of basic things. Bringing up a child with the idea that her skin color led to a hard life made this child to blame himself/herself and seeing this fact as a bad luck. In fact it is the others problem, because they do not know how to behave and what its fair. We should understand that it isn't skin color that makes a person, is the inner side that really matters.  She was a literary girl because she reads lots of books and had another perspective to see the world. 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. She felt guilty and blamed herself for what happened to him.  I think that she took the right decision, because someone who commits a crime must be punished.  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. This novel faced us with racism, rape and the consequences they bring. It makes us aware of this terrible thing and encourages us to think about solution and act in order to bring racism and everything bad related to it to an end.

READING RESPONSE ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’. Written by Maya Angelou in 1969

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the 1969 autobiography written by Maya Angelou

This book talks about a story that is intertwined by the traumas that most people with black leather have suffered in this period of time. Racism is a very important subject in this book because Angelou was also discriminated against by the white race. For more, hit topics was the Maya rape and after this her brother's murder. This book begins at the moment Maya Angelou, known in the book as Marguerite Johnson ("Maya"). She was only three years old when she moved with her brother Bailey Johnson Jr. in California to live with their grandmother Annie Henderson ("Momma") who had a shop that was dealing with stamps. In this country they made the school and began to hate their parents because they had abandoned so much that they spoiled the Christmas gifts they had donated. Years go and Maya become 8 years old and together with her brother decide to meet their father Sr. Bailey Johnson. Who abandoned them again and they feel disappointed even after that they decided to go to their mother's house Vivian Baxter Johnson who lived with her boyfriend Mr. Freeman. He was the cause of her greatest trauma that Maya had because he raped her when she was eight years old, making her feel like a caged bird. Maya's second trauma was when she returned to her grandmother and then graduated, and no one mentioned the possibility and importance that could have black women in this society and here she wanted to be women of white skin. But by courage she had that secured her own life she made her represent a strong racial identity. After many difficulties in her life she managed to survive rape, create her racial indicts, and increase the power of woman in society.

READING RESPONSE       

‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’. Written by Maya Angelou in 1969

I was very dumbfounded when I read this book because it was treating history in a way that included suffering and injustice that had become an innocent child at the most beautiful age of her life. I was impressed also for this book because was based on the life of Maya Angelo and it is difficult to write down everything for your life and this is read by everyone, because it can positively and negatively affect your career. This book had moments that I did not like as it was:

1. Abandoned that parents give to their children and why.                

2. The fact that their parents were separated also each had their loved ones.

3. Brotherhood of Maya's brother.

4.  Maya's remained alone.

Two part reading response " Incident in the life of a slave girl".

Harriet Jacobs describes in her story her experiences as a female slave and the terror of  women rights at the hands of a men. Her story is painful and this is obvious since at the beginning whrn she says " I was born to be a slave". The reasons why she was writing was not only to reveal the suffering of slaves but also the extreme gender inequality. Although there is treated the difference between white and black people. Harriet provides how difficult is to be a slave and motivate awaken the female rights in the period of time. An women whose destiny is to be a slave have a different point of view,  education and humanity. As we read, we see that there are men who try to abused women sexually. Harriet provides that she's strong for her children and she won't give up. She was so brave as she break the glass ceiling through the gender and race. Harriet fights for her right as an women, as a human being and set up the stepping stone for ending the slavery disappearance.

Two part reading response "The bluest eye"

"The bluest eye" novel written by Toni Morrison tells the life of a young African-American girl named Pecola who grows up with great depression. She is regarded as 'ugly' because of her skin and she believes that whitenes is beautiful. Her parents have both had difficult lives. Her father, Cholly, drinks and her mother, Pauline, has always felt isolated. All what Pecola requires to God are a pair of new blue eyes,like she was buying shoes ,thinking she would become beautiful. What I think is that children learn behaviours from their parents and the story treats lot of social problems such as: racism,incest,child attitude and parents inferiority towards their childrens. Beauty is an obsession that has been present and it is even nowadays. We should understand that it isn't beauty who makes a person, is the inner side who really matters.

https://youtu.be/LIF5BnugxYM

Live Every Moment speech: Munida Mazari, lovingly referred to as the Iron Lady of Pakistan,openly talks about how her life changed after a car accident left her without the use of her legs and how this has changed her perspective on life. In her poewerful speech, she expresses how important it is to accept yourself in order for the rest of the world to recognize you

Gender and race: Intersectionality

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou 

https://ia801308.us.archive.org/33/items/IKnowWhyTheCagedBirdSings/I%20Know%20Why%20the%20Caged%20Bird%20Sings.pdf

In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens by Alice Walker

https://miletic-litwiki.wikispaces.com/file/view/Mothers+Gardens+Text.pdf 

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

http://memberfiles.freewebs.com/36/26/43092636/documents/Bluest%20Eye,%20The%20-%20Toni%20Morrison.pdf

Beloved   by Toni Morrison 

http://publish.uwo.ca/~hamendt/WD%20final%20Project/litertaure/Beloved.pdf