Maya Angelou Banned

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Recommended: Essays on maya angelou's book

"I am sorry that people ban my books. Many times I've been called the most banned. Many times my books are banned by people who never read two sentences" Maya Angelou the profound author was alluding to her book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. This book is an autobiography on Maya Angelou's life. High school students should be able to read this book because it offers a unique perspective. Angelou talks about how racism and rape were two things thrown in front of her. She talks about actual events that happened in her life and how she grew from it. This book shouldn't be banned because it talks about how one person could so easily be affected by the obstacles put in front of them and still come up from them. How do we educate children by censoring everything that is deemed inappropriate? …show more content…

"Wouldn’t they be surprised when one day I woke out of my black ugly dream, and my real hair, which was long and blonde, would take the place of the kinky mass that Momma wouldn’t let me straighten" (Angelou Prologue). Her self hatred from her younger years is something most black girls have gone through. Self hatred, with women of color, isn't really identified in a lot of works of literature. When Maya Angelou referenced this she was targeting a specific group that isn't really focused on. This book was something a lot of black girls need to learn and look up too. It wasn't represented very well in her time . Furthermore, the black community not only needed this, but the entirety of America did

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  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

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    I drew similar conclusions from Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. From beginning to end, this autobiography is laden with issues of racial prejudice that perpetuate self-doubt and insecurity. As early as the second page, Maya explains how she wished that she would wake up in a white world, with blond hair and blue eyes, claiming that being black was a living nightmare. There are blatant instances of racial tension throughout almost every adventure Maya experiences, including one in which “ the po' white trash children” confronted Momma in front of her store. This scene culminates with Maya’s insightful realization that in spite of the disparity of power between the po'white trash and Momma, Momma had triumphed by maintaining her dignity.

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    There are many obstacles in which Maya Angelou had to overcome throughout her life. However, she was not the only person affected throughout the story, but as well as her family. Among all the challenges in their lives the author still manages to tell the rough and dramatic story of the life of African Americans during a racism period in the town of Stamps. In Maya Angelou's book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings she uses various types of language to illustrate the conflicts that arise in the novel. Among the different types of languages used throughout the book, she uses literary devices and various types of figurative language. In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou the author uses literary devices and figurative language to illustrate to the reader how racism creates obstacles for her family and herself along with how they overcome them.

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    944 Words  | 2 Pages

    Books are banned for many reasons but more times than not it is because of the sensitive information found within the novel that agitates the reader. As long as people have been able to develop their own opinions, others have sought to prevent them from sharing. At some point in time, every idea has ultimately become objectionable to someone. The most frequently challenged and most visible targets of such objection are the very books found in classrooms and public libraries. These controversial novels teach lessons that sometimes can be very sensitive to some but there is much more to challenged books than a controversial topic. What lies within these pages is a wealth of knowledge, such as new perspectives for readers, twisting plots, and expressions that are found nowhere else. For example, To Kill A Mockingbird, contains references to rape, racial content, and profanity that have caused many to challenge the novel in the first place. The book was banned from countless

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  • The Struggles in Maya Angelou's Life

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    Walker, Pierre A. Racial protest, identity, words, and form in Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Vol. 22. West Chester: Collage Literature, n.d. Literary Reference Center. Web. 8 Apr. 2014. .

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  • Biography Of Maya Angelou

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    Maya Angelou's writing career began during the late 1950's, around the same period when the Civil Rights Movement began to take place. Maya's known for one f her most famous poems, I Know Why The Cage Birds Sing. This poem is basically talking about how the birds in the cage are the African Americans/Blacks, where they have no freedom. "The free bird leaps on the back of the wind/and floats downstream till the current ends/And dips his wings in the orange sun rays and dares to claim the sky."(Angelou, 1-3) In the beginning , of this poem Maya Angelou is using the free bird to refer to the white people because they have all the rights and the blacks are stuck in "the cage" with no rights or freedom. Also, she could have a more positive aspect meaning that the free bird is the Black American dream coming to reality. After, being in ...

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    Maya Angelou was one of America’s greatest writers in history.  She was known for her many writings and for her part in Civil Rights Movements. Maya Angelou went through many hardships during her childhood, the most prevalent of those, racism over her skin color. This racism affected where she grew up, where she went to school, even where she got a job. “My education and that of my Black associates were quite different from the education of our white schoolmates. In the classroom we all learned past participles, but in the streets and in our homes the Blacks learned to drops s’s from plurals and suffixes from past tense verbs.” (Angelou 221) Maya Angelou was a strong believer in a good education and many of those beliefs were described in her

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  • Summary Of Maya Angelou's I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

    770 Words  | 2 Pages

    Often times in today's society, we stumble upon instances of racism and oppression. About 60 years ago, innocent civilians were poorly treated and ridiculed on a day to day basis during the time of segregation. The courage and strength of those men and women was indescribable. So now we ask ourselves, what was it like? In Maya Angelou's “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” Maya effectively uses multiple writing strategies to bring awareness to the prominently apparent issues of racism and oppression that still exist in our society using imagery, pathos, and strong diction to craft her overall message.

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  • Maya Angelou Identity

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    The novel’s young protagonist first loses her sense of self during early childhood as a result of her constant self-comparison to White people. In this autobiography, Angelou refers to herself by her full name, Marguerite Ann Johnson. Maya (in the novel Marguerite Johnson) first shows her discontent of her skin when she puts on her silk Easter dress hoping to resemble a movie star and “look like one of the sweet little white girls who were everybody’s dream of what was right in the world” (Angelou 2). To her, the vision of this magnificent movie star would only

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  • The Writing's of Maya Angelou

    1907 Words  | 4 Pages

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  • Analysis Of I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings By Maya Angelou

    778 Words  | 2 Pages

    Maya Angelou’s excerpt from her book “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” reveals the challenges facing a young black girl in the south. The prologue of the book tells of a young Angelou in church trying to recite a poem she has forgotten. She describes the dress her grandmother has made her and imagines a day where she wakes up out of her black nightmare. Angelou was raised in a time where segregation and racism were prevalent in society. She uses repetition, diction, and themes to explore the struggle of a black girl while growing up. Angelou produces a feeling of compassion and poignancy within the reader by revealing racial stereotypes, appearance-related insecurities, and negative connotations associated with being a black girl. By doing this she forces the

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  • Book Report I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

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    The book thus explores a lot of important issues, such as: sexuality and race relations, and shows us how society violated her as a young African American female. In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelou clearly expresses the physical pain of sexual assault, the mental anguish of not daring to tell, and her guilt and shame for having been raped. Her timidity and fear of telling magnify the brutality of the rape. For more than a year after the rape she lives in self-imposed silence, speaking only very rarely. This childhood rape reveals the pain that African American women suffered as victims not only of racism but also sexism.

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  • The Effect of Racism in I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

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    Throughout I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, racism is a frequent obstacle that non-whites had to overcome. When Maya is young, she doesn’t recognize the racism and discrimination as well as her grandmother does. As Maya gets older, she begins to recognize and take notice to the racism and discrimination towards her and African Americans everywhere. Maya may not recognize the racism and discrimination very well at her young age, but it still affects her outlook on life the same way it would if she had recognized it. The racism and discrimination Maya faced throughout I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, affected her attitude, personality, and overall outlook on life in a positive way.

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