Aashna Jamal Professor Shefali Balsari Shah English 4.

01 1 February 2012 African American Literature and the American Dream

The primary concern of this paper will be to examine the position and aspirations of the American Negro in the context of the American dream. This will be done by examining Maya Angelous I know Why the Caged Bird Sings within the constructs of African American history as the author feels that the occurrences at the macro level resound at the micro level and mould the direction of a Foucaultian definition of discourse . The universality of the word American will be questioned as it implies an overarching umbrella which covers all the peoples living in the nation. James Baldwin posits the question of the real American history which is based on the grounds of the Negro having had none till he came to the Land of Opportunity which helped him better himself and his way of living which proved to be an exemplary way of subjugating and exploiting him. When Maya Angelou started her autobiographical series in 1970 with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, she naturally chose her childhood as the organizing principle of her first volume. The story of Caged Bird begins when the three-year-old Angelou and her four-year-old brother, Bailey, are turned over to the care of their paternal grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas, and it ends with the birth of her son. The diasporic nature of the Negro individual is systematically repeated in Mayas experiences. Born in 1928, just before the Great Depression, she is sent over to Arkansas with her brother with name tags for identification during the journey. The subsequent feeling of displacement that she feels is a constant as she is afraid to entrench herself anywhere for fear of being uprooted. As expressed in the poem she tries to recite on Easter, the statement I didnt come to stay becomes her shield against the cold reality of her rootlessness. As per Baldwin , this was the case of the Blacks in general who ,even after the Great Migration which made several of them migrate to the North for economic opportunities ,were still treated as a separate community begging the condescending question,What does the Negro want? This migration however did produce a new sense of independence in the Black community and contributed to the vibrant Black urban culture seen during the Harlem Renaissance. The Jim Crow laws of a separate but equal status facilitated the process of othering of the Negro which can explain Bob Kennedys statement of it being conceivable that an African American would become President in 40 years after having being around for 400.(Baldwin) On seeing Momma insulted by a bunch of young white children and the derogatory treatment meted out to her by a white dentist who owed her money , Maya as a young African American puts their status in perspective. When it becomes dangerous for a Black to move out for the fear of being targeted when their hero Joe Louis is declared as the strongest man; it implies that the Blacks have a

place in society above which they should not aspire to rise. The subpoenaing of Momma as Mrs. is seen as a matter of respect for Momma however the laughter she is met with on the realization of her being Black raises the question of the equality of civilizations. The stereotype of happy singing labourers hoeing cotton annoys Maya who witness their calluses and the knowledge in their eyes that the pay will never be enough. This made a construct of a Negro who wanted to be subjugated in order to facilitate growth and development but not really partake its benefits fully .The Ku Klux Clan which instilled fear such that Uncle Willie had to hidden in a box of potatoes for a night without being remotely related to a crime that had happened is indicative of the discovery that the flag you had pledged allegiance to, had not pledged allegiance back to you.(Baldwin) As a child she fantasizes that one day she will wake up out of her black ugly dream and be white and blond instead of a large, unattractive African American girl. Her trajectory of growth is deeply impacted by her guilt-ridden response to Mr. Freemans sexual molestation revealing that she has not adjusted well to her parental abandonment and life of isolation. Her association with her Mrs. Flowers and her pillar of support in the form of Bailey helps her once again put together her life after her molestation. Breaking Mrs.Cullins china as a sign of protest against her presumptuous renaming as Mary by a woman who doesnt think it important to learn her real name is one of her first signs of going against the role which is prescribed to her. As a self-made woman, Annie Henderson has the economic power to lend money to whites; as a practical Black woman, however, she is convinced that whites cannot be directly confronted and calls herself a realist. The financially rewarding methods of Daddy Clidells friends, who catered to racial stereotypes in order to lure racist whites into their con games in San Francisco show a change in the modus operandi of the urban Black individual who learned to turn white prejudice into a liability for whites in the era of Prohibition and after WW2. Despite the difference between Momma and the con-mens methods, Maya shows that in both cases the ethical standard is based on necessity and justifies the means used to produce change. Mrs. Bertha Flowers, "the aristocrat of Black Stamps," throws her a life line. Mrs. Flowers "was one of the few gentlewomen I have ever known, and has remained throughout my life the measure of what a human being can be". Books were her solace during the introverted years after her rape and Mrs. Flowers encouraged her to listen carefully to what country people call mother wit. That in those homely sayings was couched the collective wisdom of generations. At her eight grade graduation, Mr. Donleavy promised the white children the most advanced educational opportunities and praised the black for having sent a "first-line football tackler" to Arkansas Agricultural and Mechanical College, a terrific basketball player to Fisk. She wonders how Henry Reed is still able to deliver an inspirational valedictorian speech in face of such blatant prejudice. Her experience at an unnsegregated school and further immersion in white culture makes her embrace the distinctiveness of her people and she goes on to fight for her quest for independence and personal dignity and becomes the first Black woman streetcar conductor realising that nothing comes easy and to give up is to give in. One of the experiences that appear to have impacted her chrysalis is of her driving her drunken father fifty miles across the Mexican border emboldening her perception of self. Her subsequent running away from Big Baileys home and spending a month with a bunch of Black, Mexican and

White homeless teenagers proves to be turning point in her life where she learns to appreciate diversity and tolerance. The symbol of a strong Black mother is a recurrent feature in Black American literature and Maya as a 17 year old mother steps into the shoes of a survivor against all odds. Mayas bildungsroman story under the forces of racial segregation, gender discrimination and displacement weave a universal story of a young Black girl living during that period with the metaphor of a bird struggling to escape its cage as a central image. Martin Luther Kings spoke: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is the dream. By studying the literature of the time, it is possible to extrapolate that this was but a dream.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

McMurry,M.,Role-Playing as Art in Maya Angelou's "Caged Bird", South Atlantic Bulletin, Vol. 41, No. 2 (May, 1976), pp. 106-111. Lupton,M., Singing the Black Mother: Maya Angelou Continuity,Black American Literature Forum, Vol. 24, No. 2. and Autobiographical

Genovese,E., Myth and History: Discourse of Origins in Zora Neale Hurston and Maya Angelou,Black American Literature Forum, Vol. 24, No. 2. Fryar,I.,Literary Aesthetics and the Black Woman Writer Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 20, No. 4, The African Literary Imagination (Jun.,1990), pp. 443-466.