Listen. A bird is chirping sweetly; the inviting sound coming from somewhere off in the distance. The music is charming, but there is hollowness in the tone. The bird is trapped inside a cage. Why would something caged want to sing? The thought entered my mind each time I leafed through the book's pages. Were all the characters in the story caged? Some people were masked, hidden behind familiarities. Others feared their lives would never change, while still others cringed at rejection. Many different characters are mentioned throughout Maya's story, but their situations are unique. The characters in Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings were trapped, and the different cages they lived in ruled their lives.
My mother told me being different made me "special". She never implied anything negative, but our culture has taken uniqueness that way. Uncle Willie was a cripple since age three and was not able to do everything "ordinary" men could do. "He couldn't pretend that he......
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Approximate Word Count: 1210
Approximate Pages: 5 (260 words per double-spaced page) |