Maya Angelou :: Biography Biographies Essays

Maya Angelou   I had decided that St. Louis was a foreign country. In my mind I had only stayed there for a few weeks. As quickly as I understood that I had not reached my home, I sneaked away to Robins Hoods Forest and the caves of Alley Oop where all world was unreal and even that changed my day. I carried the same shield that I had employ in Stamps I didnt come to stay. In Maya Angelous autobiographical novel, I Know why the Caged Bird Sings, tender-hearted Marguerite Johnson, renamed Maya by her refined brother Bailey, discovers all of the splendors and agonies of increase up in a prejudiced, early twentieth century the States. Rotating between the slow country deportment of Stamps, Arkansas and the fast-pace societies in St. Louis, Missouri and San Francisco, calcium taught Maya several random aspects of life while showing her segregated America from coast to coast. When Maya was three social classs old, her beautiful and successful mother move her and Bailey from Ca lifornia to Stamps to stay in the care of their grandmother, Mrs. Annie Henderson. Soon thought of as their real mother, Momma raised her grandchildren with the strict Southern principles such as, swoosh your feet before you go to bed always pray to the savior and you shall be forgiven chores and school come before play and help those in subscribe to and you shall be helped yourself. Bearing those basic principles, Maya and Bailey grew older and wiser in Stamps, each year watching the Negro cotton-pickers come and go with the burdens and homage comparable to no white person in the county. However, one day their father rode lavishly into Stamps and called for his children to return home with him to St. Louis. Bailey, an adventurer eager to leave the quaint, simple family life in Arkansas, agreed immediately, but tender-hearted Maya was frightened by the idea of bigger cities and strange people. In St. Louis, where she was presented an entirely different lifestyle, Maya experienc ed harrowing moments that caused her impetuous for the quiet safety of Stamps. Her Mother Dears boyfriend, Mr. Freeman, sexually abused her twice, and when she testified in salute against him, the important connections her mother had to the gangsters in St. Louis beat Mr. Freeman to death to unburden the shame from the family. In court, Maya lied, saying that he only touched her once, and the immorality of lying to her closest friend, her brother Bailey, cause Maya to mute herself.