Caged Bird Thesis

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Non-Fiction Essay In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou symbolizes the caged bird to be an African American trapped having hope one day will be let out free just like the soaring, free bird representing the Caucasian class, she expresses her comparison through her issues she faces like segregation, racism and life as a young colored girl in the 19th century South. Even after Lincoln’s presidency, The Emancipation of Proclamation, Civil War, and 13th, 14th, 15th amendments, minds were still not changed into the belief that African Americans were just as equal as Whites; even having stated in the United States Constitution everyone had equal rights, regardless of race. African Americans had finally had their prayers granted,…show more content…
The big event of graduating the eighth grade was meaningful to her and nothing was going to interrupt her broad moment. Until at graduation, Mr. Edward Donleavy the white guest speaker states that colored people seem to only succeed in sports, not academics. “The white kids were going to have a chance to become Galileos and Madame Curies and Edisons and Gauguins, and our boys (the girls weren’t even in on it) would try to be Jesse Owenses and Joe Louises “(pg. 179). The speaker spoke in front of a colored crowd, ensuring them a chance of them being successful is like a chance of getting rain in a desert that hasn’t seen rain in years, but maybe as a participant in sports more realistically. By having someone say such a comment about you is a big disappointment, having the question of doubt run across your mind, if you really just can live up to the standard that society has set you to? Though that person doesn’t know you personally, so who’s he to judge, who’s he to tell you what you can do and what you can’t, by a stereotype he believes. The color of skin, race, and religion doesn’t determine what you can and what you can’t do, what determines your future relies on

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