Similarities Between I Know Why The Caged Bird Friends And The Things They Carried

What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger

Pain. What is pain but a state of mind that only the one’s who endure it can control? Does the pain ever truly go away or does it just stay submissive inside of you? Maya Angelou’s autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Tim O’brien’s fiction The Things They Carried both take you on an emotional adventure, in which the authors highlight the pain and heartbreak of their characters and the many situations they are forced to cope with. Tim O’brien’s novel revolves around the soldiers of Vietnam and the turmoil that war brings to the people fighting and living there. In contrast, Maya Angelou does not depict a world of war but instead a world of segregation and sin. Although Maya Angelou is only

illustrating her life, and not the effects of war, the situations that she is forced to endure leave her as scarred as many of the soldiers fighting in Vietnam. In Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Tim O’brien’s The Things They Carried both authors exemplify the burdens that their characters are forced to carry with them, both physically and emotionally.
War is not only a physical burden, but also an emotional one that is carried by every soldier who fights in it.

Friends and relatives are forced to watch one another die in combat and are left with nothing but the feeling of helplessness. As a soldier in Vietnam, Tim O’Brien’s character, Norman Bowker, experienced this feeling when a fellow soldier, named Kiowa, died in front of his eyes. Norman had thought about “How he had been braver than ever thought possible, but how he had not been so brave as he wanted to be” (147). As he lay in a field of manure being bombarded with shrapnel and bullets, Norman watched Kiowa slowly sink into the mud, barely alive but still living. It had crossed Norman’s mind that Kiowa still had a chance of surviving if he was pulled out of the line of fire. However, the fierce attack by the Vietnamese army forced Norman to retreat and made him leave his friend behind in the process. When Norman came home from war, he began talking to his dad about everything that had happened. He explained that he had felt brave for living and fighting in the war but felt an immense guilt for not being brave enough to save a fellow soldier. This was surprising to hear because when someone tells a story of war, typically they make themselves out to be a hero. However, Norman describes himself to be almost a coward and puts himself down for his actions. This guilt was something that he may have never had to deal with before if it wasn’t for the war. Norman now carries the weight of his friend’s life on his shoulders. Another example of this was demonstrated with an additional character in the novel, Dave Jensen. When the war began, Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk made a pact that included a promise to kill the other person if something were to happen to them that may make them suffer. One day when they were walking through Vietnam, Lee stepped on a mine and took his own leg off. According to the pact, Dave Jensen was supposed to kill Lee but when Lee begged

Dave not to kill him, Dave did as he was asked. This did not come without heavy guilt for Dave, as he had broken a pact with one of his closest friends to end his suffering. Luckily for Dave “Later we heard that Strunk died somewhere over Chu Lai, which seemed to relieve Dave Jensen of an enormous weight” (63). Although Dave was relieved from knowing his friend was not suffering because of him anymore, this quote helps to show that Dave was feeling a large amount of guilt before hand. The war had left Norman Bowker and Dave Jensen, alike, with a heavy emotional burden to carry with them for the rest of their lives.
The burdens placed on the characters of Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings were less distinctly physical or emotional burdens. Instead, each character’s situation left them with both, requiring them to have to handle what they had to experience, physically and mentally. In her novel, Maya describes a scarring scenario that had affected her traumatically. While waiting for her mother to come home from work one day, Maya was violated by her mother’s boyfriend, Mr. Freeman. Maya illustrates this scarring moment by stating, “Then there was a pain. A breaking and entering when even the senses are torn apart.The act of rape on an eight-year-old body is a matter of a needle giving because the camel can’t. The child gives, because the body can, and the mind of the violator cannot” (78). Maya infers that not only were her insides being injured but mentally she was being abused. Losing her virginity to her guardian, and mother’s lover, left her in pain and barely able to walk or sit for long periods of time. Not only that, Maya was then forced to carry the emotional burden of losing her virginity against her will, and having someone she trusted to betray her. Years later, Maya decided to try and find herself through sex. This time, she chose who she was sleeping with and ended up making love with a guy who she barely knew, but wanted to be with. Maya explains that “Three weeks later, having thought very little of the strange and strangely empty night, I found myself pregnant” (283). With only intentions of finding herself through sex, Maya had not thought about the possibility of being pregnant. Due to her mistake, Maya was to carry a baby with her, whether she wanted one or not. This becomes another situation where not only does Maya quite literally carry the physical burden of her child and the necessary steps needed to be taken to be done so properly, but also carries with her an emotional burden too. Maya knows that she isn’t ready to have a baby, nor does she think she has what it takes to raise a child. Especially, knowing that the child’s father was no longer in the picture after that one night.
Although the characters of each novel are set in a different time period, setting, and situation the burdens forced upon them make them more alike than different. Each character, whether a soldier or a little girl, develops a sense of belittling their self worth. Tim killed a vietnamese soldier while camping out on duty. Looking into the future Tim still thinks “Even now I haven’t finished sorting it out. Sometimes I forgive myself, other times I don’t” (128). He feels remorse for what he had done because he knows that that man was probably exactly like himself. He did not want to die, he wanted to go home to his family and just wanted the other side to give up. Tim begins to feel like the bad guy himself. Maya also develops a sense of remorse while carrying her baby. She feels as if she does not have what it takes to be a good mother. She was scared to death of sleeping with her baby because she was afraid of rolling over on it and killing it while she was unaware. In contrast, things start to turn around for the characters. After carrying the burdens that were placed upon them, they themselves became stronger and more tolerant of their burdens. After waking up to her baby in her arms, Maya begins to realize that she might not be such a bad mother after all. Maya’s mother also realizes this and replies “See, you don’t have to think about doing the right thing. If you’re for the right thing, then you do it without thinking” (289). Maya’s mother helps to convey that although Maya may lose confidence in herself, as long as she follows her instincts she will always be making the right decisions. Although some of the soldiers don’t forgive themselves for what they had done, they begin to become more understanding of why the things happened the way they did and develop a tolerance for the weight that they must carry because of the burdens placed upon them. Some questioned whether or not it was even right to be fighting in the war in the first place, but if Maya’s mother is right, then they chose to fight because it was the right thing for them to do.
In the end, whether it be carrying the blood of someone else on your hands in a far off land or growing up as a African American girl at home, the characters of each author's novel were handed burdens that they did not feel they could carry, both physically and emotionally. Each character questioned their abilities and who they were as people. Yet, after suffering with those burdens for so long, the characters developed the strength needed to carry the burdens placed upon them and generated a tolerance required to move on with their lives as people. It just goes to show, no matter how bad things get, if you push your way through it, you will end up stronger because of it.