I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings :: essays research papers

     Quote      Reaction1     pg. 8 Chap. 1"The sounds of the new morning had been replaced with grumbles close cheating houses, weighted scales, snakes, skimpy cotton and dusty rows. In later years I was to confront the stereotyped picture of gay song-singing cotton pickers with such(prenominal) an inordinate rage that I was told even by fellow blacks that my paranoia was embarrassing. But I had seen the fingers cut by the mean little cotton boils, and I had witnessed the backs and shoulders and limb and legs resisting any further demands."     The importance of this quote is very integral to the rest of the book. To be able to criticize something you should have experienced it. This passage shows that Maya has experienced the non-privilege of macrocosm a Negro during the thirties, and experienced it at a young age. Maya wrote that she later confronted the stereotype, She had a right to beca use of her previous position.2     pg.14 chap. 2"Bailey and I decided to swindle a scene from The Merchant of Venice , but realized that Momma would question us about the author and that wed have to tell her that Shakespeare was white, And it wouldnt matter to her whether or not he was dead. So we chose The Creation by James Weldon Johnson "     This excerpt is crucial because it puts yet an other(a) facet on segregation. Really the blacks and whiteswere both afraid of each other equally. The only difference was that the whitefolks were in a position to act on those fears.3     pg.25 chap 4."In Stamps the segregation was so complete that most saturnine children didnt really, absolutely know what whites looked like. Other than they were different, to be dreaded, and in that dread was included the hostility of the powerless against the powerful, the poor against the rich, The worker against the worked for, and t he ragged against the well dressed. I bring forward never believing that whites were really real."     The first line really does a good job of summing up the situation in Stamps but the key branch of this quotation is the very last line. "I remember never believing that whites were really real." This statement really makes the whole situation clear in that it really brings home how someone can think that an entire race of people dont exist.4     pg.48 chap 7"The judge asked that Mrs. Henderson be subpoenaed, and when Momma arrived and said that she was Mrs.