Female bonding in Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
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Abstract
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings discusses about the race, class, gender and cultural boundaries. It talks about the male female solidarity and emphasizes the unity through womanist consciousness which means unity among black people to resist racial segregation and unity among black women to resist the patriarchal oppression. Angelou has delineated female characters very strongly and she focuses on the growing up of a black girl in the racially segregated America. It focuses on the double oppression of black women in America in terms of race and gender. Maya also challenges the white and male supremacy supporting black people. She has also challenged her own native patriarchy. The novel also shows the marginal position of the marginal position of the males in a strong female world. This novel presents the growing up of a black girl in America’s racist and sexist society. Through this autobiography, Angelou tries to raise the voice of black women to achieve dignified identity in the white racist and sexist America looking back on her childhood experiences. Angelou notes that she not only fell victim to a hostile, racist and sexist society, but to other social fixes as well, including the displacement she felt from her family and her peers. Angelou’s autobiography expresses the experience of painful growing up “the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat.”