Final Paper for Semester on Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Opening Scene The opening scene of Maya Angelou's, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, snatches its reader, draws them into the story, and refuses to let them go until the last exhausting sentence. The scene states the foreshadowing of events and struggles that are bound to come throughout the coming of age of a young black girl. The novel opens with a young lady named Maya reading an Easter poem in front of her …

…In the opening scene, Maya escapes and flees from the church and her humiliating and embarrassing moment. Her escape represents and foreshadows the fact that she did indeed overcome her times of struggle and hardship. Maya finally does not blame herself for being uprooted and torn between homes as a child. She accepts herself as a person, for who she really is, and not what society or anyone else thinks or claims she should be.