Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Education, Language, Art and Inter-cultural Communication (ICELAIC 2018)

Identity Construction in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Authors
Zhao Dongxu
Corresponding Author
Zhao Dongxu
Available Online December 2018.
DOI
10.2991/icelaic-18.2018.91How to use a DOI?
Keywords
Maya Angelou; “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”; identity construction
Abstract

Maya Angelou is a noted African American writer of seven autobiographies, which assured her a prominent place in American literature and she was heralded as a new kind of memoirist, one of the first African American women who was able to publicly discuss her personal life. Among those autobiographies which focus on her childhood and early adulthood experiences, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) is the first and best known. This paper aims to analyze Maya’s initiation through identity construction, to be specific, from losing her identity because of her abandoned experience and her ugly appearance to confirming her identity by the influence of grandmother Henderson and the boxing Championship of her people. It is hoped to provide a new perspective to appreciate the work and give some reference to the people who are on the way of identity construction.

Copyright
© 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.
Open Access
This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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Volume Title
Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Education, Language, Art and Inter-cultural Communication (ICELAIC 2018)
Series
Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research
Publication Date
December 2018
ISBN
978-94-6252-641-9
ISSN
2352-5398
DOI
10.2991/icelaic-18.2018.91How to use a DOI?
Copyright
© 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.
Open Access
This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

Cite this article

TY  - CONF
AU  - Zhao Dongxu
PY  - 2018/12
DA  - 2018/12
TI  - Identity Construction in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
BT  - Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Education, Language, Art and Inter-cultural Communication (ICELAIC 2018)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 418
EP  - 422
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/icelaic-18.2018.91
DO  - 10.2991/icelaic-18.2018.91
ID  - Dongxu2018/12
ER  -