Maya Angelou "I Knowwhy the Caged Bird Sings

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Critical Reflection “I know Why The Caged Bird Sings” In Maya Angelou’s first autobiography, “I know why the caged bird sings, “She describes her own experiences as a black African American girl growing up in the deep south of Stamps Arkansas. As a child, Maya went through many obstacles in her life such as the separation of her parents at the age of three, the rape and molestation by her mother’s boyfriend who lived with them and the many prejudices of her community. The separation of Maya’s parents really played a huge roll in her life. Feelings of abandonment by their parents encroach on Maya and Bailey's happiness; first her mother sent her to live with her father, and then Maya’s sense of alienation is compounded when she is reunited with her father and then abandoned again. After their father comes and leaves, they are sent back to Stamps from St. Louis to live with their grandmother whom they never knew. Their father put them on a train with their tickets attached to their brother’s coat. They feel like they have been abandoned for reasons that are their own fault. When you think about it what child wouldn’t feel like it was their fault. As a child when my parents divorced I felt as if it was my fault. Maybe I made it hard for them or, I wasn’t a good girl, sometimes I even felt like I just wasn’t what they wanted especially since I kept being passed back and forth from parent to parent. This of course leads to both of the children searching for the love of a mother figure and father figure, and varying degrees of success in soothing their feelings of being unwanted. Once a child is born they form an attachment to the person raising them whether it’s a positive or negative attachment. In the book Maya felt abandoned but I feel like her and her brother handled the situation a lot better than most children. Shortly after moving to Stamps Maya began

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