Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis to Mr. Bailey and Mrs. Vivian Baxter Johnson. Sadly, at the age of three, her parents divorced and Marguerite and her brother, Bailey Jr., who nicknamed her Maya, were sent to live with their father's mother. Thus began the roller coaster of Marguerite's life. She went back and forth from her mother to her grandmother on a couple of occasions. And finally, when she was seven, she returned to live with her mother. These living conditions however, were soon terminated when her mother's live-in boyfriend raped her. When Marguerite finally came up with the courage to confess to her mother what had happened, the man who had raped her was mysteriously murdered. After that tramatizing expierence, she returned to live with her grandmother and was a voluntary mute for five years. (Showalter, 3)

When asked questions reguarding this portion of her past, Angelou only said, "The mature woman looks back on her bittersweet childhood, yet her authorial voice retains the power

There is reason to believe that the question of the novel is in its showing of racial relations. One of the earliest examples of racial relations in the book symbolizes the strict kinds of opportunity for black and white children. On the second page, Marguerite explains how she wished that she would wake up in a white world, with blond hair, blue eyes, and she would shudder from the nightmare and hellish thought of being black(Angelou 2).

Some common words found in the essay are:
Bird Sings, Maya Angelou, Mama Mama, Bailey Jr, Stamps Marguerite, Francisco California, Weldon Johnson, St Paul, Francisco Showalter, Maya Angelou's, caged bird, bird sings, caged bird sings, maya angelou, black female, african-american traditions, angelou writes, white people, racial relations, southern whites novel, novel criticizes, comfortable southern, comfortable southern whites, races comfortable southern, po' white trash,
Approximate Word count = 2988
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)