It is Worth the Struggle essays

It is Worth the Struggle essays In the autobiography I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou, a question is posed about growth and outlooks on life based upon surroundings alone. If society is formed based on its ethics, then the people in them have no choice but to be caged birds. The main character Marguerite, also known as Maya, pushes the false images of struggle and hardship out of her way, blossoming into a strong and prosperous young woman. The sounds of the new morning had been replaced with grumbles about 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 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 arms and legs resisting any further demands. (Angelou 7) Stamps, Arkansas was Mayas cage. At a young age she truly knew nothing else but the perch of prejudice she stood on. However she knew it was wrong, and it was not the place she wanted to be. Mayas eyes are wide open to the prejudices around her, not the ones placed by white people, but from black people themselves. He must have tired of being crippled, as prisoner tire of penitentiary bars and the guilty tire of blame... and the looks he suffered of either contempt or pity had simply worn hi m out, and for one afternoon he wanted no part of it. Maya spoke of Uncle Willy. I understood and felt closer to him at that moment than ever before or since. (Angelou 11) This one image is what I believe ignites the fire within her to say I can. to anyone who stands in her way. Uncle Willy was not as prominent a male figure in Mayas life as her brother Bailey. One year her senior, Baileys strength adheres to Maya and begins forming her into an intelligent and ...