Title Of Paper : The Cages Of Maya Angelou

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Term Paper Title	Title Of Paper : The Cages Of Maya Angelou
# of Words	942
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	3.77

Title of Paper : The Cages Of Maya Angelou
Grade Received on Report : 85

The Cages Of Maya Angelou

     Maya Angelou wrote an amazing and entertaining autobiography titled I Know Why The Caged
Bird Sings, about her hard life growing up as a black girl from the South.  Among the hardships are things
known as "cages" as stated as a metaphor from Paul Dunbar’s poem "Sympathy."  "Cages" are things that
keep people from succeeding in life and being everything they want to be.  Some of Maya Angelou’s cages
include being black in the 1940’s and her overbearing grandmother.  For me a my major "cage" is my
young age, this causes problems with adults.

     A major "cage" from Maya Angelou’s youth was that she was black in a prejudice southern town.
Maya has recounted in her book the times when she was discriminated against.  When she was working for
a white woman named Mrs. Viola Cullinan, Mrs. Cullinan started calling her Mary, "That’s [Margaret] too
long.  She’s Mary from now on."(pp.91)  One of the most important aspects of a person is their name.  It is
a great insult for someone to change your name, without your consent, just because someone wanted too.  If
Maya was white Mrs. Cullinan would not have changed her name and she did it only because of her racist
friends and attitudes.  Even some of the white adults who supposedly supported her had hidden their racist
messages in seemingly nice speeches.  Maya conveys the words of Mr. Edward Donleavy, one of the
people in the masquerade, "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 ev!
en in on it) would try to be Jesse Owenses and Joe Lousises."(pp.151)  Maya was forced to listen to Mr.
Donleavy’s stereotypes of how white children could be thinkers and black children can only be athletes.
What was supposed to be an encouraging speech, which Mr. Donleavy probably thought was sincere,
turned out to be just another racist and stereotypical speech.  Perhaps it was not so much Mr. Donleavy’s
fault, because he was trying to be nice, but more of his upbringing.  Racism was the most prominent of
Maya’s "cages" and it is probably due to the society and ignorant ideas.

     The second major cage of  Maya Angelou was that she has a very strict, religious, and overbearing
grandmother.  It is important that a child’s guardian be caring and strict but that guardian should not be too
strict.  After coming back from Mrs. F...

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