I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings (The End)

Summary:
In this last section Maya and Bailey do a lot of growing up. Maya along with her brother and grandmother move in with Vivian had her new partner Daddy Clidell after the World War II. They all live together in San Francisco, and she goes to school there. She immediately was promoted to the next grade,when she transferred to an all white school, she was one of the few African American students in her class. There was only one teacher she recognized as the one that did not treat her differently because of her race. She Maya receives a scholarship to the California Labor School. There she studies Dance and Drama. Furthermore Maya sees Daddy Clidell as a good father figure. She gets to see the difference when she goes to spend the summer with her real father and step mother Dolores. Her father continues to procrastinate his marriage;he hasn't married Dolores yet, but said he will. Dolores seems to be a very jealous person especially since Big Bailey sometimes takes business trips to Mexico and leaves her in the mobile home. This time when Maya is there, Big Bailey takes Maya with him to Mexico. They seem to be bonding, and Maya starts enjoying the trip when she uses her knowledge of Spanish. Unfortunately one day Big Bailey was no where to be found and Maya waited for him in the car. Later on he came out of a bar, drunk. because he passed out, Maya had to drive for the first time. She had a little accident, that did not get him mad, instead it brought his consciousness back. He then drove them back. To add insult to injury, upon arriving at her fathers mobile home, Dolores begins arguing with Big Bailey. Maya head her mention how she felt that he had been neglecting her, and choosing his daughter over her. Maya then confronts Dolores and apologizes for making her feel that way; Maya did it in a kind way. However Dolores took it the completely wrong way and began insulting Maya's mother by using derogatory terms. Maya then slaps her, as she said she would. Dolores retaliated by stabbing her. After her father makes her stay at a friends house, Maya chose to run away. She wanted to go back home and tell Vivian, but she knew that that would cause more problems between her parents. She stayed in a junkyard where she gained somewhat of a family. Her temporary/ newly found family was made up of a group of black, Mexican, and white homeless teenagers. After staying there for a month she calls for Vivian to pay the air fair back to San Francisco. 

When she goes back home she realizes that Bailey has begun to go against his mother. Its in a weird way, because he starts dating white prostitutes, and dressing different in order to resemble the men that his mother dates; he wanted to catch her attention. When this did not work, he moved out, saying he needed to leave the nest.

Maya became the first black woman to work on the San Francisco streetcars, when she decided to take a semester off of school . Furthermore she was confused about her sexuality when she realized that her voice was deeper, she had no hips and undeveloped breasts. She was confused about being either a lesbian or a hermaphrodite. Finally she asks her mother about this and  her mother tries to clears her confusion by saying that these changes were completely normal. However, while still trying to figure this out, she decides to find a boyfriend. Instead of finding one she ends up pregnant, and announces her 8th month pregnancy when graduating. Her mother and step father simply tell her that she has to accept her new responsibilities. She gave birth to a baby boy.

Quote:
"Mother came to my bed one night bringing my three-week-old baby. She pulled the cover back and told me to get up and hold him while she put rubber sheets on my bed" (Angelou 288). 

Reaction:
I chose this quote because I noticed the change in Maya's attitude towards her mother. Before she was sort of iffy about the relationship between her and her other. Before she would refer to her mother as Vivian, and by the end of the story she writes Mother. It shows that over time Vivian gained her daughters trust, respect, and love.

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings (200)

Summary:
 In this section Maya graduates from the eighth grade, and the author demonstrates to the reader different aspects of racism through the graduation ceremony. That is, Maya stated that for black people in Stamps an eight grade graduation is a great event. Also a white speaker by the name of Mr. Edward Donleavy, who came to speak about different improvements in local schools, mentioned that the white schools received new lab equipment for their science classes. However he simply said that there were a lot of black college athletes that had graduated from that school. Maya took this as an insult, because she felt that it was a way of saying that Black students only achieve greatness through sports, not their intelligence. Her mood during the graduation was very low until Henry Reed the valedictorian of their graduating class begins to lead his class in the song :"Lift Ev'ry Voice and Song". This song was considered the Negro National Anthem. As she joined them her pride and mood increases immediately.
 On the other Maya had a horrible tooth ache because of two rotten teeth and had gone to a white dentice with Momma. The reason why she didn't go to a black dentice was because the nearest one was in fact very far, and there was a white dentice that Momma knew. Momma had lent Dr. Lincoln money during the great depression. However when she asked him to treat Maya, he refused to treat a black patient. She reminded him that she had loaned him money years ago, and still he insisted that he was not going to treat Maya, and he reminded Momma that he had paid her back already. Momma then told him that he owed her interest, and he in return gave er ten dollars. In the end Momma had to take Maya to a black dentice.

 By the end of this section, Momma planned to send Maya and Bailey back to California to live with their mother. Before this Bailey had experienced the shock of his life. He saw a dead black man being pulled out of a pond, and was told by a white man, who was laughing, to help him load the black man's body into a wagon. On top of that, the white man pretended that he was going to put Bailey along with the other black men hat were there, in the wagon and lock him in there. Bailey went him shaking and pale.

Quote: 

"Annie, my policy is I'd rather stick my hand in a dog's mouth than in a nigger's" (Angelou 189).

Reaction:

This quote is when Dr. Lincoln did not want to treat Maya. When I read this I was confused, because I wasn't sure what to think about him. I didn't know where to think he was rood and a racist because he didn't want to treat a little girl just because she was black, or to think he was nice because of the way he spoke to Momma since she had entered his space. Also I wasn't sure if I should categorize him as a hypocrite; he did accept her money during the Great Depression, but doesn't accept her now. I wonder if he had this great epiphany that made him now think that if it wrong to associate with a black person, or if he even thinks that it is wrong to associate with a black person. Sadly, I am still not pleased with this character, and do not know how to characterize him. Is he rood? A hypocrite? A racist? An opportunist? Selfish? All the above?

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings(152)

Summary
In this section Maya and Momma go out looking for Bailey when he is out late. After finding him moping his way back home, Momma beats him. Bailey later on tells Maya that he was out late watching a movie that stared a white actress that looked like their mother Victoria. After watching it once he decided to watch it again. Eventually Maya saw the movie also and found it funny that a white woman looked just like her black mother Victoria. While this made her laugh, it saddened Bailey. He obviously missed his mother and when he watched that movie he felt calmer than usual. Maya noticed that before he was as tho he had no soul. Furthermore in church, the preacher spoke about charity, and bout those who practiced false charity. It was an attack against white christian hypocrisy. That is because white Christians would help the poor blacks and expect them to belittle them selves in return. When the preacher spoke of this, he assured that there would be divine revenge and justice. Honky tonk parties, were considered a sin among the black folk. However, according to Maya it was, just as the church was to the other black people, an escape from the harsh reality.

Moreover Maya and Bailey seem to be growing up in this section. While Maya is able to understand more, Bailey is thinking less as a kid and more as a teen. Maya, along with other black people in their community were rooting for Joe Louis to win a heavyweight championship boxing match . If he lost, according to Maya, everything racist whites say about black people would end up being justified. that is because his loss would be a representation of other failures against the white man, that is Lynching, black women being raped, and black boys being beating.  When he won, he proved that the blacks are the most powerful people in the world, according to Maya. On the other hand, Bailey began playing sexual games with girls in the yard, inside a tent. He would tell Maya that she was the baby that had to stand guard, while he was the father, and the girl was the father. Eventually Bailey looses his virginity to Joyce, who is older than him and developed. When she runs away with another man, Bailey goes back to being depressed/ down. Maya shows this to the reader when she mentions that before Joyce had left Bailey was not using sarcasm, just as he was earlier in the story when he was not around his mother.

Quote:
 "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 slimy swamps.It was a white woman slapping her maid for being forgetful"(Angelou 135).

Reaction:
After reading this quote I remembered how in To Kill a Mockingbird, when the trial was going on, all the blacks were there to support Tom Robinson, and when Atticus spoke in behalf/ in defence of Tom Robinson it was though he was speaking in behalf/ in defence of ALL black people. Just as here in I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Joe Louis's match was the battle of the black in that town. if he lost it was though the blacks had lost yet again another battle against whites. When he won, the Battle did not necessarily end but it gave the blacks a push towards success. This then made me come down to the conclusion that southern literature not only included the trials, tribulations, and life of black people, but also the overall mentality of blacks and progress.

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings (104)

Summary:
 In this next section Bailey and Maya live with their mother's parents for six months and then later move in with their mother, Vivian, and her mother's boyfriend, Mr. Freeman, who ends up molesting Maya many times before he rapes her. Maya used to sleep with her mother and his, in her mother's bed. When he molested her, he would masturbate while holding her, but because Maya is young, she simply sees it as something to be happy about. She actually is pleased by the fact that she is being held by someone. However, she is puzzled when Mr.Freeman threatens to kill Bailey if she tells anyone what has being going on. She doesn't understand that he has done something wrong, instead when he ignores her, and then repeats his molestation, she feels as though he is rejecting her. When he rapes her, Maya is a little bit more conscious that something is wrong because she hides her bloody underwear under her bed. After Maya's mother kicks out Mr.Freeman, Bailey finds that underwear under the bed. That is when Maya spills the beans at the hospital in which her mother took her upon finding out about the underwear. When confessing, Maya is asked if there have been any previous incidents like so, and she ends up lying to the court and Mr. Freeman is only given one year and one day in jail. When he is released he is beaten to death, and that causes Maya to believe that her lying provoked his death. She ends up not speaking to anyone but Bailey; at the first the family simply deal with it, thinking they are being empathetic. However, as time goes by they begin to get violent and both are sent back to Momma in Stamps. Bailey is pretty upset, while Maya is kind of happy to be back in Stamps. When there, she gets a job at the age of ten. At first her maturity level (in her mind) was already high because of what the nurse had previously told her about going through the hardest part of life, but now there is truly a slight growth.

Quote:
"One morning she got out of bed for an early errand and I fell asleep again"(Angelou 72).

Reaction:
This quote makes me extremely angry, because I feel as though the scars in which the rape might cause, could have been prevented! I have to admit, as a younger girl(around Maya's age in this section) I used to sleep with my father and mother, or my grandmother and grandfather, and even my aunt and uncle, and I felt as though nothing was wrong with that, just as Maya did. HOWEVER, is my aunt, mother, or grandmother were to wake up while I was sleeping, I would have not been left alone with the man. I'm not sure if it is because of the different mind set that my mother has, or is it that Vivian, Maya's mother, was careless in this situation. Not being a mother, I do not  have that sixth sense that many may have, by any means common sense should have came to her when she was leaving her young daughter with a man who apparently is lucky to even be with her. I truly believe that if Vivian was more involved in her daughter's life from the beginning, then this would have been avoided, or at least the possibility of it happening would have been slightly smaller.

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings(54)

NEW BOOK!

Summary:
In this modern American classic a young girl by the name of Maya tell us how she, along with her brother Bailey, were sent to Stamps, Arkansas, when she was three and her brother four. Their parents had gotten divorced, and their father sent them to live with his mother, whom they later on call Momma. Momma takes them in to live with her and her disabled son Willie (Maya and Bailey's uncle). Momma not only owns a store in the black section of the town, but also is one of the most respected residents. She serves as a great example for her grandchildren when it comes to dealing with racism and respect. Momma insist that Maya and Bailey follow rules and respect their elders. One day, while in the store, Maya witnesses her grandmother being mocked by three poor white children who enter the store. While Maya is crying historical, because of her anger, Momma is calm; she ignores the children.  That is because, she strongly believes that it is not safe for black people to talk to white people, especially in an offensive manner. Maya said that Momma would have called herself the realist instead of the coward. This means that Momma finds it pointless and useless to mouth off to a white person, as many others did. She felt that its best to ignore them, than sink to their level.
Furthermore, Maya is a very insecure young girl. She constantly reiterates how she would hear that she's ugly because of her hair, dark skin and size. She had kinky hair, dark skin, and she was too big for her age. This  led her to replacing the meaning of beauty with being white. She feels as though her resolution is to be a white girl. On the other hand, her brother Bailey is very handsome; when others bother him about his sister's appearance, he insults them about their looks. Maya sees her brother as the most important person in her world. By the end of this section Bailey and Maya meet both their father and mother. Both of them are like strangers to Maya,but Bailey gets along with their father, and is in love with their mothers looks. He realizes that they really look alike and are alike in personalities. However, after meeting them, Maya still sees them as strangers.

Quote:
"People spoke of Momma as a good-looking woman and some, who remembered her youth, said she used to be right pretty. I saw only her power and strength" (Angelou 46).

Reaction:
I found this to be a powerful quote, because it reinforced the thought that i had while reading about Momma. I felt that Momma was, in fact, powerful, based upon the fact that she took in two young children who were facing racism, guilt, and in Maya's case low self-esteem. She was giving her grandchildren a home that embedded  moral discipline, respect, and rules to surviving racism. In my opinion, that is hard! For Maya to say that her grandmother is powerful, is like a hint to the reader, or in my case, an affirmation.

Her Last Death (The end!)

Summary:
Susy's story ends the same way it started. The reader realizes that Susy does not regret her past life style, instead she acknowledges it and moves past those old ways. She went to see her mother, and was able to speak to her Penelope. She tells her that she is sorry for setting them aside and living her own life, and how she was extremely selfish. Furthermore, after the her son Daniel was born Susy truly demonstrates to the reader that she is going to fulfill her dreams in becoming a better mother than she had. Although she did accept the fact that her mother was still, in her own little way, a good mom.

Quote: "We will be laughing" (Sonnenberg, 273)

Reaction:
This quote is, in fact the LAST line of Susy autobiography. My reaction to this was not only pleasure because I enjoyed the book, but also understanding. I now come to understand why Susy had initially hesitated at the beginning of the book, when she found out her mother was dying. The book was well put, and the ending emphasized her growth, because she speaks of how her and her son will be laughing when she gets back home; she reached her goal of becoming a better mom.

Her Last Death (231)

Summary

After avoiding Wyatt Susy moves on to a guy named Jason, and is now in college. Her new roomate, Amy, builds a relationship with Susy's mom. That is because Daphne was able to use her techniques of manipulation and charm. Eventually their conversations go from the normal to the abnormal; Amy and her begin speaking of Amy's sex life, and even takes her to get birth control. One day while Amy's parents were visiting the dorm, Daphne begins speaking about Amy's sex life in front of them. Poor Susy was left extreemly speecless because Amy's parents left with her for good. Furthermore, Susy was ready to marry a man by the name of Noah. Unfortunately upon realizing that their relationship was insincere( Susy would sleep with other men as a way of getting back at him for his constant lying) she calls it quits. She then calls Wyatt to end things compleatly with him, but she is set back because he tells her that he has cancer and is dying.

Susy moves on to another realtionship that does not go well just as the other. This new one was English and is called Gordon. They were doing pretty well but things went down hill when he meets her mother. Now, Daphne is falling back into the intoxication path, and continues to use her back pain as an excuse. Although she is simply making it worsen. However as much pain as there is, Daphne still attempts to flirt with Gordon, and Gordon ends up telling Susy that he no longer has feelings for her and that he is in another relationship. Once they break up, Susy and her mom are regaining that bond they used to have. This then enables daphne to tell Susy that because she had found a painful lump on her breast, the doctor tested her for breast cancer.

The next man in Susy's life (there were way more before him)is Christopher. She ends up eloping with him and gets pregnant twice. The first time she has a miscarriage because this runs in her family she doesn't give up. Instead she gets pregnant once more, however this time she aborts because Christopher tells her that he is not ready to become a father. By the end of this chapter, he tells her he is ready, and although she is guilty for the prior abortion, she still decides to try to become the mother she wish she had.

Quote: " She lied, cheated on her boyfriends, thought only of sex, power triumph, double-timed, tripple-timed."(Sonnenberg,197)

Reaction:
In this quote Susy is confessing to Christopher who she used to be before they met. When I read this I felt proud of Susy, because it showed that she was moving past her old days. It also proved my point when I had said, while reading, that Susy was becoming more and more like her mother. sadly her mother did not change like Susy is.

Her Last Death (149)

Summary:

In this section Susy enter her new home/school; she gets accepted into boarding school. The day she moved in her mother's nineteen year old boyfriend was helping out. In fact he even had sex with Susy's mother on Susy new bed. Anyhow, Susy was lucky enough to get a room to herself, however she was not accustomed to the type of restrictions the boarding life came with. She could not roam the hallway at certain hours, she had a curfew, and unlike at her mothers house, boys were out of the picture.  However, Susy does violate that one rule. First, she had a short relationship with a senior who she kissed, and although she did not like it she enjoyed the thrill of kissing on the stairs on the way to the dorm room. Anyhow the relationship ended when Larry(the senior) broke up with her because he was not interested in having a girlfriend.  The second time was when a boy she crushed on forced her to preform oral sex on him. His name was Hammond, and he was a freshman at her school. He had pushed Susy to the ground and held her down while he...well hopefully you get the picture. As horrible as that may sound, Susy simply pushed him off and acted as though nothing had happened. Unexpectedly she told her teachers and informed Hammond that she had done so, he seemed to not have cared.

Moreover, Susy's mother was still skipping around from man to man...to even teenage boy. One of the teens was Justin, the boy Susy had been crushing on since a long time. Randall, one of her mothers men, found out about her mothers affair and he beat her. He later on went to beat up Michael too. Although Susy's mother might have ended up with horrible bruising, Susy was mainly concerned about how her sister, Penelope.  Her mother's health becomes worse and worse and Penelope is the witness. In fact, if it was not for Penelope calling the emergency on time, their mother would have dies from a horrid infection she gained from shooting up coke and tap water.

Sadly the more Susy grows up, the more she resembles her mother. Not only does she begin flirting with older men (a random 24-year-old she met in the street, and her teacher) she is now officially allowed to drink, drive, and snort cocaine along with her mother, who is encouraging her to continue going out with older men.  As a matter of fact, that same teacher she once flirted with (who rejected her once, with the excuse of being married for 12 years) became the one she lost her virginity to.  They fell in love, and had to end it when he told his wife. Susy avoided his phone calls and simply stuck to looking back on it instead of going back to it.

Quote:

"The next morning my father said that id he thought he could win, he'd sue my mother for custody of Penelope"(Sonnenberg 99)

Reaction:

When I realized that her father wanted to do so, I wondered if it would be a good idea. Say Penelope was to live with her father, who remarried, she would have to adapt to a new environment, which would probably be a difficult task for her since living wit her mother was not normal. On the bright side Penelope would not have to experience all that her sister went through while she was young. Penelope is starting to be the one who calls the hospitals and witness the affects of drugs. Also now that her sister is becoming more like her mother, it may be a good decision for her to live with her father, since Susy may not pay that much close attention as before.

Her Last Death (87)

Summary:
Apart from the fact that Susy's mother would always have a new boyfriend/husband/lover, she sometimes paid more attention to them than her own health. Suzy had to witness her mother having a seizure, clean up the blood, and make sure Penelope was not exposed to it. Her mother would have spasms, and back pains, restricting her from following her motherly duties. The back pains begun a long time ago while she was in school and a boy in her class played a prank on her, by pulling the chair from under her. When she fell  she fell on her tailbone, and injuring the disks in her tailbone. Now Susy is twelve, and her mother's open conversations of sex, drugs, and men slowly moved on to encouragement to have boyfriends, sex and take drugs. In fact, she let Susy sniff cocaine, bought her pornographic magazines, and assured Susy that what she was doing was normal, and perfectly fine.  In this section of the story Susy moved into her friends house when she was in seventh grade, while her mother and Penelope went off to New Mexico. She said she preferred to live with them because they were way more responsible, and her mothers idea of moving to Mexico did not sound as fun to her. Because Susy was accustomed to being the eight year old mother, she felt a bit of relief because all she had to do at her friends house was be a kid, follow the rules and simply wash up before dinner. However after a while she felt lonely, though she no longer wanted that weight lifted off her shoulders. Instead Susy wanted to hear the questions her mother always asked her, and she misssed her sister. For that reason she went off to New Mexico to join her sister and mother. Sadly this did not end too well; Susy and her mother are now having problems. Daphne (Susy's mom) is becoming abusive, and argumentative towards her daughter. Susy ends up going to boarding school in Connecticut.

Quote: "When my mother was born, her father was famous"(Sonnenberg 42).

Reaction: The fact that Daphne was brought up in such a Hollywood life style angers me. How could it be that even though she met famous people, had such a brilliant father, and a high class childhood she still fell into the life of drugs, sex, and alcohol? I wonder if she ever thought her daughters deserve the same treatment, especially since they behaved way better than her;she had sex with half the famous people she met. If Daphne is so good at convincing people and getting what she wants, then why does not she strive to be a good role model to her daughters, and a successful woman in general. Is it that she does not want that type of future for her kids?

Her Last Death (40)

Summary
In her biography Susanna Sonnenberg introduces her situation with a phone call from her aunt. Her aunt explains to her that her mother is currently in a coma, after being in a huge accident. Susanna, or susy, after hearing this news is in complete shock however her thoughts are not going in the "right direction." By right  direction I mean, usual. Susy reacts to this in confusion; she does not know whether she should take the next flight to Barbados to see her mother before she dies. That same mother who raised her and her younger sister Penelope around drugs, sex, and lies. That same mother who she cannot seem to keep a close relationship with, and is actually scared to even try.

Quote 
"I'm a person who isn't going to her mother's deathbed"(Sonnenberg 12)

Reaction
After reading such a quote I immediately remembered my 9th grade English teacher telling the class that we needed an attention getter for our writing. One that would make the reader want to either read more, ask questions, or dispute with the narrator/author. Although this quote was not literally at the beginning of the story, it was the attention getter  for me. After reading this I tried HARD to put my self in her position. I pictured my mother at her deathbed, a plane flight away from me, yet very close to my last nerve. I did not hesitate to jump out of that picture and say:But forget that! She's my MOM! That was when I realized that that is why the author decided to begin the book the way she did. My teacher was right, because the getter worked.

Why would she ever be confused about seeing her mother before she dies!?
What could her mother have done to her ?
Can she not set her differences and problems aside, for this moment and forgive her mother?
I want to read more...
How dare she not see her mom before she dies!
Whether she wants to or not she should go.
Susy can hold a grudge! Or is it pain... 
I have to read more...