Experiences Of Marginalized Women Maya Angelous I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings In Focus

Experiences of marginalized women in America have been less studied since African-rnAmerican literature, unlike in the present times, was not taken as an integral part of Americanrnliterature. Though it gets better attention now, it is impossible to say it accorded the level itrndeserves. Maya Angelou, who won Pulitzer Prize for her first volume of autobiography-I KnowrnWhy the Caged Bird Sings, is one of the significant authors who talk loud in addressing blacks’rnexperience in America. This paper has attempted to explore experiences of African-Americanrnwomen by taking Angelou’s novel in focus.rnThe foundation of the research is laid in chapter one; in the background of the study, thernstatement of the problem, objective, significance, scope and methodology of the study havernbeen discussed. Trends of Afro-American literature were presented as changing from beingrnneglected into better status of concern. Autobiographies of black women have been ignoredrnmore severely than the rest of writings in the world. Hence, by applying text based analysis, thernresearcher planned to achieve the objective of exploring black feminine experiences inrnAmerica with special reference to Angelou’s novel.rnTo realize the objectives that are set in the first chapter, detailed explanation has been given onrnthe central concepts of feminist literary criticism in general and black feminism in particularrnpreceded by a discussion of local and global studies on the same area to the current research.rnStudies have been made on different works by raising distinguished issues under the umbrellarnof feminist concept. It has been confirmed that the current research is distinctive since itrnfocuses on the exploitation of marginalized women’s experiences set in in Angelou’s I KnowrnWhy the Caged Bird Sings. By the conceptual framework of the study, discussions aboutrnAfrican-American literary history, criticism and its form of resistance together with the conceptrnof black feminism have been provided.rnivrnIn light of the theoretical concepts of Black feminism an attempt has been made to analyze thernnovel under study in chapter three. In this part, the novel has been analyzed thoroughly tornexplore dominant feminine experiences revealed in the text. Under the framework of blackrnfeminist reading, the researcher has critically analyzed unique experiences of black womenrnfrom the rest of the world. Race, gender and class issues were the general brands of blackrnwomen’s oppression. Hence, racial prejudices against black women and the response to therninjustices have been discussed based on the nature of resistance from helpless anger to outrightrnprotest. In addition, sexual abuse and segregation followed by ignorance and maternity havernbeen analyzed as interlocked oppressions of black feminism. The paper was closed by raisingrnkey points of the study in brief. As it has been shown in the analysis of the novel under study,rnAngelou was able to reflect the multiple oppressions of black women in America. Furthermore,rnshe indicated her feminist vision through the portrayals of optimist, thoughtful, kind andrnfaithful characters.

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