About
Maya Angelou’s I know why the caged bird sings is an autobiographical account of her childhood. After separation of her parents, she was sent to live with her devout grandmother in the southern United States. Though not being affectionate, her grandmother teaches her a lot about life. She is also subjected to racial discrimination by the local whites. At the age of eight years, she returns to her mother, but there is no improvement in her situation and she is humiliated and abused. Years later, now living in San Francisco, she learns to respect herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit and the ideas of great authors like Shakespeare and Edgar Allen Poe allowed her to be free rather than imprisoned in her past.