Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969): An African American Woman’s Autobiography as Social and Psychological Discourse.
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Date
2016
Authors
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Publisher
Mouloud Mammeri University of Tizi-Ouzou
Abstract
This dissertation studies the construction of an African American woman’s identity from
psychological and sociological perspectives, in Maya Angelou’s autobiography I Know Why the
Caged Bird Sings (1969). To achieve our goal, we have relied on W.E.B. Du Bois’s theory of “Double
Consciousness” introduced in his work The Souls of Black Folk (1903). We have first studied the
devaluation of the protagonist’s identity as a little black girl living in the bottom of the American
society. We have introduced the main social factors which enhance the distortion of her psychological
state. Second, we have examined Maya’s journey to self-revaluation, which is characterized by a
positive sense of herself as an individual, and as an important social constituent. The analysis of the
development of the protagonist’s identity in the light of Du Bois’s theoretical concepts, shows that the
character of Maya, as many African Americans in general, and Black women in particular, had passed
through several social circumstances, which shaped the construction of her self-consciousness and her
identity as an African American woman.
Description
72p.;30cm.(+cd)
Keywords
Citation
Langues et Cultures des Pays Anglophones et Médias