In Chapter 12, Angelou describes her harrowing experience with penetrative sexual assault as an eight-year-old. In the following excerpt from that chapter, Angelou utilizes biblical allusion and metaphor to characterize her experience:

Then there was the pain. A breaking and entering when even the senses are torn apart. The act of rape on an eight-year-old body is a matter of the needle giving because the camel can't. The child gives, because the body can, and the mind of the violator cannot.

In the above excerpt, Angelou uses metaphor to compare herself and Mr. Freeman to a "needle" and a "camel," respectively. This metaphor must be understood within the context of Matthew 19:23-24, the Bible verse to which Angelou's statement alludes. In this verse, Jesus presents an analogy to his disciples, instructing them on wealth's moral pitfalls: "Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God'" (New International Version).

In Matthew, Jesus presents the idea of a "camel" going through "the eye of a needle" as inconceivable, using an analogy to demonstrate the near impossibility of immoral rich people entering heaven. Angelou repurposes this metaphor: she is the needle, forced to give beyond her limits because Mr. Freeman, the camel, cannot control himself or his pedophilic impulses.