January 13th

    "But Momma convinced us that not only was cleanliness next to Godliness, dirtiness was the inventor of misery. The impudent child was detested by God and a shame to its parents and could bring destruction to its house and line." 

- Page 42, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings


    While reading this story, I often referred back to the title, "I Know Why the Caged Birds Sing." Maya recalls on a time in her life where her family was often taunted by white folk in her town. In this, her family always remained respectful, compliant even, and never acted "out of sorts". Along with this, Maya speaks about her time in her church, which ended in the story with her being whipped until she cried. In my opinion, the "caged bird" in this scenario is Maya, or even the women of her family. Within this metaphor of a title, I think the meaning lies behind it that the women in her family and the women in the town in general, spoke in such a way and acted in such a way to not be put in a place where they could stir up trouble with other people. Because they were people of color, and women, if they acted out or if they did not comply with the societal standards of how they were to act in public and towards white people, it could end very poorly for them. Going off of this idea, it really stuck out to me that Angelou included moments where her mother and grandmother were actually singing, after important moments in the story that defined their lives as colored women. 


    Looking at the quote that I selected for the beginning of this blog post, I think it is only fair to inspect the use of dirtiness and cleanliness within the context of this story. More obviously, dirty and clean can be seen as light and dark, or even white and black, which in this story is an important distinction to be made. On top of this, Maya's mother even noting that cleanliness was close to Godliness, inspired the idea that the white individual was seen as more than, and the black individual, or the dirtiness was misery, or less than. I also think it is important to note in this context, that in the story, Maya refers back to a time where multiple girls come by the shop and taunt her mother, ultimately flashing their bodies after the fact. In the quote, it says "the impudent child" which in this case could be the few girls who came to the store, and the "shame" in which they brought were both the physical and sexual showings of one of the girls' bodies as well as the outright disrespect they showed and elder. 


Lastly, I think it is important to note how Sister Monroe acts in such violence towards the Reverend. In this case, I think it shows a woman showing protest against the churches beliefs. I also believe that this, int he case of Maya, showed the power within women to both physically show restraint against racism and sexism (Sister Monroe) as well as emotionally and psychologically (in the use of her mother and grandmother). Maya's relationship to religion seems to be a complicated one, but the impact that Sister Monroe had on the church was great. In this story, she seemed to have been the caged bird who finally sung. 


Comments

  1. Jordan MilesJanuary 13, 2023 at 6:43 AM

    I thought that the quote you chose to talk about was very meaningful and it made me realize there was a lot more to cleanliness and dirtiness in the context of her life story. It really relates to some of the oppression and mistreatment that she has experienced throughout her life story. I liked how you talked about how her mothers words could relate clean to white and dirty to black because unfortunately at this time I think people could think that is accurate. Especially with the clean and white aspects being related to God and positive aspects, and the opposite being misery.

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  2. savannah shockleyJanuary 13, 2023 at 6:45 AM

    I agree with your statement about Maya/the women of Maya's family being considered the "caged bird(s)". From what we see in the story ranging from Momma's place in her community to Maya being afraid of speaking up about her molestation/rape, the lack of a voice with these women within not just the black community, but the community in general is what this story is trying to portray. With Maya's story of growing up and seeing acts of violence not assigned consequences, she (along with the other women in the story) sees this as normal and/or "just the way it is". This can be seen as commentary within Maya's cohort, but it also comments on how situations that involve racism and/or sexism are often dismissed.

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