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Themes and Colors
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The memoir also explores the idea of home and the pain and confusion of displacement, and in doing so for the particular experience of Maya Angelou also more broadly portrays these issues with respect to the history and experience of black Americans.
Marguerite is sent away from her mother and father to live with her grandmother at a young age; one of her earliest memories is of displacement, of being sent away from her home. She and Bailey often wonder why they were sent away—they feel rejected. At the same time, Marguerite associates Momma with home, and is sad to leave Arkansas when she and her brother go to St. Louis. In many ways, Marguerite’s childhood is characterized by an enduring struggle to identify “home.”
When Marguerite and Bailey are moved from Arkansas to California, Marguerite finds the transition painful, but understands it. Bailey is threatened by a white man who forces Bailey to help carry the carcass of a drowned black man found in the lake. After this incident occurs, Momma makes it clear that the children will have to move. In this way, displacement is shown to be a fundamental part of growing up black in America. Though Arkansas is Bailey’s home, he is forced to leave because violent racism drives him away.
In a book so deeply concerned with history, and with the history of black oppression, it is appropriate that displacement and the difficulty of finding “home” play a huge role in the lives of the book’s characters. The legacy of slavery is still having a palpable effect on the lives of Maya and her family—finding “home” in America proves to be especially difficult.
Related Themes from Other Texts
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Home and Displacement ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Home and Displacement appears in each chapter of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
How often theme appears:
chapter length:
Chapter
Prologue
Chapter 1
1
Chapter 2
2
Chapter 3
3
Chapter 4
4
Chapter 5
5
Chapter 6
6
Chapter 7
7
Chapter 8
8
Chapter 9
9
Chapter 10
10
Chapter 11
11
Chapter 12
12
Chapter 13
13
Chapter 14
14
Chapter 15
15
Chapter 16
16
Chapter 17
17
Chapter 18
18
Chapter 19
19
Chapter 20
20
Chapter 21
21
Chapter 22
22
Chapter 23
23
Chapter 24
24
Chapter 25
25
Chapter 26
26
Chapter 27
27
Chapter 28
28
Chapter 29
29
Chapter 30
30
Chapter 31
31
Chapter 32
32
Chapter 33
33
Chapter 34
34
Chapter 35
35
Chapter 36
36
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Home and Displacement Quotes in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Below you will find the important quotes in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings related to the theme of Home and Displacement.
Prologue Quotes
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.
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In the conclusion to her vividly imagined prologue, Angelou highllights the pain and displacement that shape much of the book. She takes as her premise the pain of growing up as a “Southern Black girl,” making it clear that she’ll be focusing on three core parts of her identity as a writer and as a character within her own autobiographical fiction: her Southernness, her Blackness, and her gender. Further, Angelou concludes, it is the Southern Black girl’s awareness of her displacement that makes this pain not only sharp but maybe even dangerous. Angelou’s book looks closely at all sorts of Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusant
Chapter 3 Quotes
It seemed that the peace of day’s ending was an assurance that the covenant God made with children, Negroes, and the crippled was still in effect.
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Angelou’s exploration of the Black community’s rhythms of daily life in Stamps, shaped by their visits to her grandmother’s store and their difficult days of manual labor, describes early morning and nighttime as periods of rest so deeply needed that they might be sacred. At the same time, though, Angelou writes with definite sarcasm; the grouping of “children, Negroes, and the crippled” highlights the ridiculousness of the pairing in the first place – the equating of black people with children and cripples – and in so doing shows how such a grouping emerges from white paternalism (and not from Angelou’s Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesci
Chapter 4 Quotes
When I was described by our playmates as being shit color, he was lauded for his velvet-black skin…And yet he loved me.
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The brother-sister relationship between Maya and Bailey is central to this book. In other contexts a passage like this might signal jealousy on Maya’s part; she is treated poorly for her tone of black skin, and Bailey is “lauded” for it. But here, amidst all of Maya’s admiration for and amazement at her brother Bailey, there is little room for jealousy. Angelou uses two very different but equally powerful descriptors for their blackness: “shit color” for her, and “velvet-black” for Bailey.In these descriptions Angelou unflinchingly takes on the language of her detractors, forcing the reader to feel some of the Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus ea
Chapter 7 Quotes
Momma intended to teach Bailey and me to use the paths of life she and her generation and all the Negroes gone before had found, and found to be safe ones.
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In reading this passage, it helps to have a sense of how ardently Maya Angelou worked, throughout her career, to tell new types of stories about blackness and being black in the United States. This quotation clearly emerges in retrospect, as Angelou reflects on the ways Momma held her and Bailey within the safe confines of relative black success as sanctioned by white society. In this passage we find both sympathy for Momma’s beliefs and a real desire to surpass them, to live radically outside of what could be considered “safe” because it wouldn’t offend any of the power-holding white Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferen
Chapter 11 Quotes
He held me so softly I wished he wouldn’t ever let me go. I felt at home.
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In the midst of being sexually assaulted by Mr. Freeman, Maya finds peace in the sensation of being held by him. This is one of the most vivid and disturbing sequences in I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, and Maya’s utter confusion about what is happening to Mr. Freeman’s body and what he might be doing to her is captured most effectively in this moment. Mr. Freeman has just finished masturbating against Maya’s body, and knowing this the reader cannot help but wince at the intimacy of their embrace. But Maya, who has not yet connected the wetness in Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et
Chapter 15 Quotes
It would be safe to say that she made me proud to be a Negro, just by being herself.
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As she did with Mr. Freeman (to disastrous effect), Maya looks to Mrs. Flowers for an adult ally. However, the relationship she develops with Mrs. Flowers is positive, and formative in spurring Maya’s fascination with reading and writing. Mrs. Flowers also, as Angelou suggests here, is a living denial of the stereotypes Maya struggles against as a black girl. Educated, dignified, elegant: Mrs. Flowers is everything the white people say black women cannot be. Thus she makes Maya “proud” simply by existing, by providing a vital counterexample in Maya’s youth to the stereotyped image of blackness and femininity promoted in Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Even
Chapter 17 Quotes
The Black woman in the south who raises sons, grandsons, and nephews had her heartstrings tied to a hanging noose.
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In this startling passage, Angelou ties the common imagery of “heartstrings” to the uniquely black horror of the “hanging noose.” This shift from a universal image to a very particular one conveys the specificity of Angelou’s claim: it is the southern black woman— and these are the three core aspects of Maya’s political reality— who feels this unique pain of knowing that her son, grandson, and nephew could be killed for just about any sort of infraction, legitimate or not, like Bailey’s failure to return home by sundown. Black men are in unique danger, which puts their family members in Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut ve
Chapter 19 Quotes
“It looks like Joe Louis is going down.” 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 the slimy swamps. It was a white woman slapping her maid for being forgetful.
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Joe Louis, one of the most famous and successful black boxers, seems likely to lose the heavyweight championship while everyone listens on the radio in Momma’s store. Angelou captures the tragedy of another loss for black society by putting Louis’ defeat in the same category as the terrible (and terribly violent) things black people had to live through in the segregated South. All sorts of racial violence, like the violence of Louis’ boxing defeat, are evoked here: lynching, ambush, rape, whipping, the chasing of slaves, the abuse of black servants. Louis’ loss is a huge disappointment for “my race,” Angelou Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores s
It wouldn’t do for a Black man and his family to be caught on a lonely country road on a night when Joe Louis has proved that we were the strongest people in the world.
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When Joe Louis finally does win, it is a victory for the black community tainted by the fear that any form of celebration over Louis’ win could bring about retaliatory violence in the southern white community. Angelou elucidates some of the symbolism behind Louis’ victory, the reason it would have been so devastating— a groan for Angelou’s entire race— had Louis lost: his victory was to prove that black people were the strongest in the world. Louis, somehow able to bear the weight of this task, demonstrates at least in Maya’s eyes that blackness and success would have to be Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea sus
Chapter 23 Quotes
We were on top again. As always, again. We survived. The depths had been icy and dark, but now a bright sun spoke to our souls.
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Having reacted bitterly to the irony of her classmate Henry’s “To Be or Not To Be,” Maya is— like the rest of the audience at her eighth-grade graduation— pleasantly surprised when Henry sings the Black National Anthem. The scene explodes with singing, like the black church Momma takes Maya to, and this vocalization of her community’s unity and solidarity quickly makes them forget Mr. Donleavy’s unfortunate speech. By one-upping Donleavy with song, instead of trying to out-speak him, Henry accesses a plane of connection with his audience utterly inaccessible to the aloof white educator. Maya feels this direct connection strongly, Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Opti
Chapter 25 Quotes
I wouldn’t miss Mrs. Flowers, for she had given me her secret world which called forth a djinn who was to serve me all my life: books.
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In this crucial passage, Maya registers one of the main reasons she loves books and feels grateful toward Mrs. Flowers for imparting her love of reading. Books, Maya, realizes, can be taken anywhere; they are not dependent on the physical or emotional closeness of anyone else, and offer an indirect but always accessible form of communication between reader and writer. The same is true, in a way, between the different readers of the same book. If Maya reads a book she learned about from Mrs. Flowers, she might feel again like she’s spending time with her black woman role model. Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates.
Chapter 27 Quotes
The Japanese were not whitefolks…since they didn’t have to be feared, neither did they have to be considered.
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In one of the few moments in I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings when Angelou analyzes the status of a United States ethnic minority besides black people, we sense that the younger Maya isn’t quite sure how to process a group of people that is neither black nor white, neither us nor them. Her analysis is interesting because it is fear of other people, in her mind, that warrants consideration of them. One tragedy of Maya’s childhood is that she must always consider things in order to avoid violence, racial or otherwise; so it makes sense, in a way, Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt d
Chapter 28 Quotes
Miss Kirwin never seemed to notice that I was Black and therefore different.
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Maya’s departure from Stamps and arrival in San Francisco mark one of the book’s biggest turning points, and for the reader closely following Maya through her childhood it’s hard not to wonder what her experience will be at her new school—especially given how much of a child’s life takes place at school during her student years. Strangely, in this alien world to the west, Maya’s teacher “never seemed to notice” her skin color, and treats Maya like all of her other students. One of the unfortunate ironies of this passage is that, as Angelou seems to hint, all students probably Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo mi
Chapter 34 Quotes
The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste, and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.
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There’s a standard novel formation called the bildungsroman in which a young character (usually a white male) grows up and goes out into the world seeking to do or achieve something. In this passage, and really throughout the book, Angelou makes it clear that in I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings she’s writing her own “American Negro female” sort of bildungsroman. Because the black woman’s development of a “formidable character” is far from the standard narrative promoted by Angelou’s society, it is shocking and even “distasteful” to people in more privileged positions. Yet, as Angelou says, it is the Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum volu
Chapter 36 Quotes
I patted my son’s body lightly and went back to sleep.
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This is the very last line of the book. It is both a pleasant, life-affirming image to end on, and also something more than that. Maya’s soft pat of her son contrasts sharply with the many forms of violence inflicted on her body throughout the novel, from the way Momma beats her for minor infractions to the jarring acts of sexual abuse and rape committed by Mr. Freeman. It is a form of bodily contact that conveys not fear or pain but closeness, kindness, care, and love. It is also a comforting gesture toward her child, of the type we Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui
