Discussion for I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

[Diane , Armchair Tour Guide]

Start discussion for I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou here.

[Diane , Armchair Tour Guide]

From ReadingGroupGuides:



1. The memoir opens with a provocative refrain: "What you looking at me for? I didn't come to stay ..."

What do you think this passage says about Ritie's sense of herself? How does she feel about her place in the world? How does she keep her identity intact?

2. Upon seeing her mother for the first time after years of separation, Ritie describes her as "a hurricane in its perfect power." What do you think about Ritie's relationship with her mother? How does it compare to her relationship with her grandmother, "Momma"?

3. The author writes, "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." What do you make of the author's portrayal of race? How do Ritie and her family cope with the racial tension that permeates their lives?

4. Throughout the book, Ritie struggles with feelings that she is "bad" and "sinful," as her thoughts echo the admonitions of her strict religious upbringing. What does she learn at the end of the memoir about right and wrong?

5. What is the significance of the title as it relates to Ritie's self-imposed muteness?

[Diane , Armchair Tour Guide]

This is on sale on Kindle (US) for $4.01

[Sarah]

I have started listening to this, read by the author. I like getting sucked into the life of a black girl growing up in this time of segregation.

[Sarah]

I guess people voted for this one but nobody wanted to discuss?

[Cathy]

I've been traveling and then I had to finish Cider House Rules for another book club. I will be picking this up again tomorrow. I started it and would like to finish it.

[Sarah]

I listened to Mayou Angeloread it on her audio book - I loved her story.

[Cathy]

I just finished the chapter where she was raped by Mr. Freeman. In Cider House Rules, Mr. Rose impregnates his daughter. I looked up incest in the black community...it is everywhere, but why does it seem to be prevalent in the black community? Looking for some empirical data.

[Sarah]

I don't know the empirical data, but sexual abuse in families runs in all races and socioeconomic families across the board. Pedophiles are everywhere. I work in healthcare and this is what is taught anyway.

[Sarah]

And I hadn't read Cider House Rules yet, hopefully that wasn't a great spoiler?

[Mmars]

Yes. Family sexual abuse/incest is in all cultures. I think the black culture has become more vocal about exposing the perpetrators. White northern Europeans tend to be tight-lipped and "keep it in the family." I'm missing a lot of the world here. But it's there.
I think when this book came out it was groundbreaking. Maya Angelou is to be commended not only for her forthright attitude, but also for her ability to write in a way that resonates with the reader.

[Heather]

Unfortunately incest is everywhere. I have read and listened to this and have to say the audio of Angelou reading her work is powerful.

[Sarah]

If some books dealing with white folk pedophilia are needed to broaden the experience I recommend - very intense and fiction - but very accurate portrayal of the cycle of abuse and dysfunction in families. I also read , Wally Lamb's new book, but this one is very powerful because one of the points of view is from the perpetrator/child molester/pedophile/rapist.

[Mmars]

Sarah, I've read that. Very powerful and disturbing. It was an "Oprah" book. For a long time after I picked my Oprah books carefully. Not to belittk e the book. It's really good.

[Cathy]

Mmars wrote: "Yes. Family sexual abuse/incest is in all cultures. I think the black culture has become more vocal about exposing the perpetrators. White northern Europeans tend to be tight-lipped and "keep it i..."

I grew up in a first generation Italian family and everything was to be a "secret" and don't expose anything outside the family - a lot of domestic abuse. So I know it is everywhere, and yes, we white northern Europeans are tight lipped. I think Oprah and Tyler Perry have been more open and forthright about bringing the topic in the open to help others.

No not a spoiler for Cider House Rules - at the very end of the book and not a key issue however, the movie makes it so and that was my comment with my other reading group. In the screenplay, Irving kept the African American incestuous relationship in and left out all of Homer's faults, adding to my statement and even the stereotype.

[Cathy]

I am at the part now where she is back with Momma and beginning to speak again. It is understandable why she would become mute after such a traumatic experience and I am concerned that she feels that she did some wrong in not telling about the other time. Women are always made to blame for men's brutal behaviors. It was understandable that she liked being held by Mr. Freeman, like a dad hugs his child, but it was he who betrayed that trust.

[Cathy]

“If you're for the right thing, you do it without thinking. ”

[Mmars]

Just heard that Maya Angelou has passed away. She was 86. Hats off to an extraordinary woman.
She will be missed.

[Cathy]

I know, freaky. I just finished the book on Tuesday. I am glad I read it. May she RIP.

[Alana]

I listened to this one read by Maya Angelou herself. I don't normally like when authors read their own works, as many of them are great authors, but terrible narrators. She had a wonderful voice, though: very much a poet, and you can hear it in the way she spoke. Gave her story that much more reality, hearing it in her own voice and accent. Very powerful story, though difficult to read in places, due to the obvious subject matter. I look forward to reading more of her autobiography works.