I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

by

Maya Angelou

Race, Inequality, and Identity Theme Analysis

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Race, Inequality, and Identity Theme Icon

Young Marguerite grows up in the segregated American south; but I Know why the Caged Bird Sings is not simply an investigation of the history and effects of segregation: it is an incisive and honest examination of race, inequality, and identity.

Marguerite is taught by her grandmother to fear and avoid white people, and to think of them as godless, and not to be trusted. At the same time, she teaches her grandchildren never to speak disrespectfully to a white person, even if the person was “powhitetrash”—in other words a white person with very little stature. In the memoir, Maya Angelou carefully describes and records the reality that interacting with a white person in the segregated American south is dangerous for a black person. The Ku Klux Klan—casually referred to as “the boys” by the town sheriff—lynch black men for even looking at a white woman the wrong way. Black people cannot feel safe around white people, because insulting a white person (even inadvertently, even if provoked) is quite literally a deadly mistake. However, this internalized fear and loathing of white people is accompanied in Marguerite by the desire to be white. White people are, in Marguerite’s eyes, prettier, richer, and happier. They are treated more fairly by the law, their stories are represented in books and movies, they do not live in fear of racial violence. Whiteness is superior, and the effect that this cultural inequality has on Marguerite’s young mind is immense.

The book does not stop at recording and cataloguing the racial inequality between black people and white people. It also identifies a complex hierarchy within the black community between light-skinned black people and dark-skinned black people. Light skin is considered more beautiful, and garners more respect. Marguerite’s mother is light-skinned; Marguerite, upon reuniting with her at the age of 8, thinks that she is too pretty to be a mother. She rationalizes her own rejection by appealing to a general cultural appreciation of light skin over dark skin. Marguerite is dark but her mother is light—she thinks this must be the reason her mother sent her away. Marguerite is also envious of other children in the town, who are either bi-racial or borne of light-skinned parents, who are lighter and therefore, in her mind, better than her. Uncle Willie faces even more discrimination and violence because he is black, dark-skinned, and crippled. His character in many ways demonstrates how various oppressions and prejudices can converge and complicate a person’s identity and experience.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is in part an account of Maya Angelou’s experience growing up black in the American South. Her race, and the violence, discrimination, and degradation she faced as a result of her race, played an integral role in shaping her as a person and as an artist. Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of this memoir is its nuanced, honest, and unflinching portrayal of racism and its consequences in America.

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Race, Inequality, and Identity Quotes in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Below you will find the important quotes in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings related to the theme of Race, Inequality, and Identity.
Prologue Quotes

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.

Related Characters: Maya Angelou (speaker)
Page Number: 4
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

It seemed that the peace of day’s ending was an assurance that the covenant God made with children, Negroes, and the crippled was still in effect.

Related Characters: Maya Angelou (speaker), Uncle Willie
Page Number: 16
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

When I was described by our playmates as being shit color, he was lauded for his velvet-black skin…And yet he loved me.

Related Characters: Maya Angelou (speaker), Bailey Johnson
Page Number: 22
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In Stamps the segregation was so complete that most Black children didn’t really, absolutely know what whites looked like. Other than that they were different, to be dreaded.

Related Characters: Maya Angelou (speaker)
Page Number: 25
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Chapter 7 Quotes

Momma intended to teach Bailey and me to use the paths of life she and her generation and all the Negroes gone before had found, and found to be safe ones.

Related Characters: Maya Angelou (speaker), Bailey Johnson, Momma (Annie Henderson)
Page Number: 47
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Chapter 15 Quotes

It would be safe to say that she made me proud to be a Negro, just by being herself.

Related Characters: Maya Angelou (speaker), Mrs. Bertha Flowers
Page Number: 95
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

The Black woman in the south who raises sons, grandsons, and nephews had her heartstrings tied to a hanging noose.

Related Characters: Maya Angelou (speaker), Bailey Johnson, Momma (Annie Henderson)
Page Number: 114
Explanation and Analysis:

I laughed because, except that she was white, the big movie star looked just like my mother…and it was funny to think of the whitefolks’ not knowing that.

Related Characters: Maya Angelou (speaker), Mother (Vivien Baxter)
Page Number: 118-119
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

Let the whitefolks have their money and power and segregation and sarcasm and big houses and schools and lawns like carpets, and books, and mostly—mostly—let them have their whiteness. It was better to be meek and lowly…than to spend eternity frying in the fires of hell.

Related Characters: Maya Angelou (speaker)
Page Number: 131
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

“It looks like Joe Louis is going down.” My race groaned. It was our people falling. It was another lynching, yet another Black man hanging on a tree. One more woman ambushed and raped. A Black boy whipped and maimed. It was hounds on the trail of a man running through the slimy swamps. It was a white woman slapping her maid for being forgetful.

Related Characters: Maya Angelou (speaker)
Page Number: 135
Explanation and Analysis:

It wouldn’t do for a Black man and his family to be caught on a lonely country road on a night when Joe Louis has proved that we were the strongest people in the world.

Related Characters: Maya Angelou (speaker)
Page Number: 136
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

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 even in on it) would try to be Jesse Owenses and Joe Louises.

Related Characters: Maya Angelou (speaker), Edward Donleavy
Page Number: 179
Explanation and Analysis:

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.

Related Characters: Maya Angelou (speaker), Henry Reed
Page Number: 184
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Chapter 24 Quotes

“Annie, my policy is I’d rather stick my hand in a dog’s mouth than in a nigger’s”

Related Characters: Dr. Lincoln (speaker), Maya Angelou, Momma (Annie Henderson)
Page Number: 189
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27 Quotes

The Japanese were not whitefolks…since they didn’t have to be feared, neither did they have to be considered.

Related Characters: Maya Angelou (speaker)
Page Number: 210
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Chapter 28 Quotes

Miss Kirwin never seemed to notice that I was Black and therefore different.

Related Characters: Maya Angelou (speaker), Mrs. Kirwin
Page Number: 216
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Chapter 29 Quotes

The Black man, the con man who could act the most stupid, won out every time against the powerful, arrogant white.

Related Characters: Maya Angelou (speaker), Daddy Clidell
Page Number: 221
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Chapter 34 Quotes

The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste, and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.

Related Characters: Maya Angelou (speaker)
Page Number: 272
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Chapter 36 Quotes

I patted my son’s body lightly and went back to sleep.

Related Characters: Maya Angelou (speaker)
Page Number: 289
Explanation and Analysis: