I know why the caged bird sings quotes Flashcards
Injustice examples (2 quotes) Education
“The Central School (naturally, the white school was Central) had already been granted improvements… they were going to have the newest microscopes and chemistry equipment for their laboratory.”
“ the white kids were going to have the chance to become Galileos and Madame Curies and Edisons and Gauguins, and our boys (the girls weren’t even in on it) would try to be Jesse Owenses and Joe Louises.”
Disunity & injustice - discrimination and accpetance of this (2 quotes)
“It was awful to be Negro and have no control over my life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense.”
“There was no “nobler in the mind” for Negroes because the world didn’t think we had minds, and they let us know it.”
Fear and uncertainty (1)
KKK’s coming
“Even after the slow drag of years, I remember the sense of fear which filled my mouth with hot, dry air and made my body light. The “boys”? those cement faces and eyes of hate that burn the clothes off you if they happen to see you lounging on the main street downtown on Saturday. Boys? it seems that youth had never happen to them. Boys? No, rather men who were covered with Graves’ dust and age without beauty or learning. The ugliness and rottenness of old abominations.”
Injustice - Mayas experience of sexual abuse as a child (2 quotes)
‘“If you scream, I’m gonna kill you. And if you tell, I’m gonna kill Bailey.” I could tell he meant what he said. I couldn’t understand why he wanted to kill my brother.’
“Then there was the pain. A breaking and entering when even the sense are torn apart, the act of rape on an eight-year-old body is a matter of the needle giving because the camel can’t. The child gives, because the body can, and the mind of the violator cannot.” pg 78
Unity within the black community
Henry reed
Henry Reed (Maya’s classmate) seeks this unity by singing “the Negro national anthem” which everyone joins in on, and which causes Maya to cry from pride, “We were on top again. As always, again. We survived. The depths had been icy and dark, but now a bright sun spoke to our souls. I was no longer simply a member of the proud graduating class of 1940; I was a proud member of the wonderful, beautiful Negro race.”
Seeking unity and justice (1)
This can be seen in Angelou’s criticisms, through her narrative voice which allows her to speak out while recounting her experiences with discrimination.
“If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat. It is an unnecessary insult.”
Discrimination at the dentist (2 quotes)
“Said he’d rather put his hand in a dog’s mouth”
“Annie, everybody has a policy… Now, my policy is I don’t treat coloured people.”
Evidence of aspirations and motivations.
Joe Louis’s win motivates the black community,
Joe Louis’s win motivates the black community, to believe that they are not the “lower types of human beings” or “stupid and ugly and lazy and dirty and, unlucky and worst of all, that God himself hated [them]”. It motivates Maya to believe she, as a black female is capable of achieving and succeeding, is Joe Louis was able to become “Champion of the world. A black boy. Some Black mother’s son.”
Fear and uncertainty (2)
KKK - critcism of
“His confidence that my uncle and every other Black man who heard of the Klan’s coming ride would scurry under their houses to hide in chicken droppings was too humiliating to hear.”
Fear and uncertainty (3) of the black community (fear of death due to discrimination)
“My race groaned. It was our people falling. It was another lynching, yet another Black man hanging on a tree. . . This might be the end of the world. If Joe lost we were back in slavery and beyond help.”
Fear and uncertainty (4)
Momma
“She didn’t cotton to the idea that whitefolks could be talked to at all without risking one’s life. And certainly they couldn’t be spoken to insolently.” - Momma
Seeking unity and justice (2)
Baileys experience
Personal narrative voice
“Bailey was… away in a mystery, locked in the Enigma that young Southern black boys start to unravel, start to try to unravel, from 7 years old to death. The humourless puzzle of inequality and hate. His experience raised the question of the worth and values, of aggressive inferiority and aggressive arrogance.”
Seeking unity and justice (3)
Personal narrative voice - reference to Maya’s father
Personal narrative voice
“How maddening it was to have been born in a cotton field with aspirations of grandeur.” - referring to her dad
Momma tries to seek some form of justice when taking young Maya to the dentist
“‘Even though by rights he was paid up before, I figger, he gonna be that kind of nasty, he gonna have to pay for it.’ Momma and her son laughed and laughed over the white man’s evilness and her retributive sin.”
Young Angelou questions elitist treatment of white people.
“And then if they were dirty, mean and impudent, why did Momma have to call them Miz?”
