Research Paper on "Psychological Impact and Significance of Geography in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"

>Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is just such a well written autobiography. In this book, the former poet laureate of the United States recounts both the horrors and the wonders that befell her in her early life, as her struggles and triumphs take her from Stamps, Arkansas to San Francisco, California, with several significant stops and backtracks in between. Despite all of the hardships that Angelou endured, she managed to break many barriers and become a strong presence in many communities, and this is in large part due to the various locales in which her story of coming into her own takes place. The different geographical settings of Angelou's life story, especially as rendered in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, provided different lessons that helped to shape the girl named Marguerite into the woman and poet know today as Maya Angelou, much stronger and more assertive -- and more psychologically self-aware -- than she once was.

Beginnings and Returns: Stamps, AR

Much of Maya's childhood was spent living with the woman she called Momma, in reality her father's mother, who ran the only store in the black neighborhood of the severely segregated town of Stamps, Arkansas. Sent to live here at a young age following their parents' divorce, Maya and her brother Bailey would return to Stamps several times after unsuccessful bouts of living with their mother. The effect of this on Angelou's psychological development would have been quite complex; Stamps was a place of terrible racism and near-daily ridicule and torment for the growing child, but it was also a place of security and steadfastness in a constantly changing world.

Despite providing at least some small comfort as a home, however, Stamps was eventually deemed to unsafe, with the growing racial tensions, for Bailey and Maya to continue living there with Momma, and even before this time it was not an altogether pleasant place for people of color to live at any age. Angelou remembers, looking back, that up until the time she "was thirteen and left Arkansas for good, the Store was my favorite place to be" (Angelou, pp. 16). This place -- Momma's place -- was a place of comfort and security, but the rest of the town was scary and predatory. The white people were a terror in and of themselves in various ways, and even members of the black community found ways to ridicule Maya and make her uncomfortable in her extreme shyness. All in all, Stamps is presented in the book as a dusty place of destitution, yet a place still close to the poet's heart.

Moving Out? St. Louis

Though Stamps might not have been the most wholesome place to raise a young child of color in the 1930s and 40s, other locales provided more of a freewheeling attitude towards various types of sin. The first time Bailey and Maya are sent to resume living with their mother, it is to the bustling city of St. Louis, which was like a whole new world when compared to sleepy, dusty Arkansas. It certainly seemed so to Maya and Bailey, at least, who found their mother working in gambling parlors and living with her new boyfriend, Mr. Freeman. The setting has a definite loss of innocence when compared to the dreary streets of Stamps, and this has direct implications on the story and on Maya's development.

The loss of innocence that is experienced during Maya's time in St. Louis is not confined to the setting of the big city alone. This is also the scene of Maya's molestation and eventual rape at the hands of Mr. Freeman, causing her a great loss of innocence as well as a great deal of psychological trauma in addition to the physical harm she suffers. The silence that she falls into, and in which she remains until she is back in Stamps and introduced to an adult friend that is personally encouraging and helps to build up her esteem, is indicative of what can happen in cases of abuse -- especially when there is no solid support network of other individuals, abuse victims often simply internalize and shut down (Boyatzis, pp. 221). At this point in her life and in the story, Maya does not need the freedom and licentiousness of St. Louis, but rather the comfort and support of her home in Stamps.

Life Beyond Borders: Mexico and the Junkyard Gang

Maya eventually finds a home in San Francisco, but before she truly settles into her adult life she makes one other significant geographical journey. Invited to stay with her father for a summer, Maya finds herself needing to drive her drunken father back across the Mexican border, teaching herself how to drive -- in a stick-shift -- along the way. The sense of freedom that she achieves with this accomplishment, and the true sense of independence and simple self-reliance that the fact of her driving represents is so great that is not even dampened by the minor accident that brings it to an end: "Buoyed by the adrenaline…I had never felt better" (Angelou, pp. 236). Crossing the border into a more lawless and open land, Maya was able to find freedom.

She brings this freedom and newfound independence back across the border with her, and after a violent altercation with her father's girlfriend, finds herself living with a group of homeless teenagers that find her in a junkyard. During the month she spends with this ragtag clan, Maya learns both the strength of her independence and the true usefulness of tolerance, diversity and community. Though brief, this time is seen as largely formative of the psychological independence and compassion that the poet displays in her work and throughout many aspects of her life (Walker, pp. 101-3). The junkyard is an excellent setting for this revelation, as it is when many of aspects of her life appear to be in their on state of ruin that Maya discovers and acknowledges that she truly as enough within her to not only to get by, but to achieve great things for herself and her community. Her return to San Francisco from this junkyard marks her last major move, and her final return to what she will claim as her adult home.

The Golden Gate: San Francisco

It is again with her mother, and this time with her new husband and the only really solid father figure to appear in her life, that Maya Angelou truly find a city to call home. This city is San Francisco, and the difference of its geography to the other places Angelou lives throughout her journey in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is immediately apparent, as is its psychological effects on the author/protagonist. The northern coastal air and hills of San Francisco present marked contrasts to the flat and hot places Angelou inhabited before, and the freedom she has slowly discovered and grown into is well served by this new landscape.

While still in high school, Angelou manages to break the color barrier in the San Francisco street car fleet, becoming the first African-American conductor. This achievement is cited by some as fundamentally important in creating a sense of esteem and admiration from Maya's mother towards her daughter, which itself necessarily had formative effects on Maya herself (Ingman, pp. 184). Though Maya still… READ MORE