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.
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