Geography and Identity in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Introduction: Setting as a Literary and Autobiographical Force

Setting is one of the key elements in almost every piece of fiction, and especially in the novel. It is difficult to tell the story of Oliver Twist — or many of Dickens' other tales — without the streets of London as a backdrop, just as it is nearly impossible to imagine Hemingway's fiction, long or short, without each tale being rooted in its own specific geographical locale. Some works are more dependent on setting to illustrate and reflect the inner moods of their characters than others. In many stories, setting directly influences both the plot and the psychology of the characters involved. Moby Dick comes to mind as a work in which setting is especially essential to basic plot development as well as to the development of the novel's characters.

When a piece of literature is not fiction at all, but is rooted in autobiographical fact, the importance of setting increases still further. This is especially true in terms of the setting's influence over the psychological development of the characters — now real people, though perhaps subjectively and even somewhat imaginatively rendered — involved in the story's progression. The places where people live, grow up, and learn have a profound impact on who those people ultimately become. In a well-written autobiography, this association is rendered clearly and movingly without necessarily calling explicit attention to the connection between setting and character.

Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is just such a well-written autobiography. In this book, the former poet laureate of the United States recounts both the horrors and the wonders that befell her in early life, as her struggles and triumphs take her from Stamps, Arkansas, to San Francisco, California, with several significant stops and backtracks in between. Despite all of the hardships Angelou endured, she managed to break many barriers and become a strong presence in many communities — due in large part to the various locales in which her story of coming into her own takes place. The different geographical settings of Angelou's life story, especially as rendered in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, provided different lessons that helped to shape the girl named Marguerite into the woman and poet known today as Maya Angelou: stronger and more assertive — and more psychologically self-aware — than she once was.

Beginnings and Returns: Stamps, Arkansas

Much of Maya's childhood was spent living with the woman she called Momma — in reality her paternal grandmother — who ran the only store in the Black neighborhood of the severely segregated town of Stamps, Arkansas. Sent to live there at a young age following their parents' divorce, Maya and her brother Bailey would return to Stamps several times after unsuccessful bouts of living with their mother. The effect of this on Angelou's psychological development would have been quite complex: Stamps was a place of terrible racism and near-daily ridicule and torment for the growing child, but it was also a place of security and steadfastness in a constantly changing world.

Despite providing at least some small measure of comfort as a home, Stamps was eventually deemed too unsafe — given growing racial tensions — for Bailey and Maya to continue living there with Momma. Even before that point, it was not an altogether pleasant place for people of color to live at any age. Angelou recalls that up until the time she "was thirteen and left Arkansas for good, the Store was my favorite place to be" (Angelou, p. 16). That place — Momma's place — was a place of comfort and security, but the rest of the town was frightening and predatory. White residents were a source of terror in various ways, and even members of the Black community found ways to ridicule Maya and compound her discomfort in her extreme shyness. All in all, Stamps is presented in the book as a dusty place of destitution, yet a place that remained close to the poet's heart.

Moving Out: St. Louis and the Loss of Innocence

Though Stamps may not have been the most wholesome place to raise a young child of color in the 1930s and 1940s, other locales offered a more freewheeling attitude toward various forms of sin. The first time Bailey and Maya are sent to resume living with their mother, it is to the bustling city of St. Louis, which was like a whole new world compared to the sleepy, dusty landscape of Arkansas. It certainly seemed so to Maya and Bailey, who found their mother working in gambling parlors and living with her new boyfriend, Mr. Freeman. The setting carries a definite sense of lost innocence relative to the dreary streets of Stamps, and this has direct implications for the story and for Maya's development.

The loss of innocence experienced during Maya's time in St. Louis is not confined to the setting of the big city alone. St. Louis is also the scene of Maya's molestation and eventual rape at the hands of Mr. Freeman, causing her profound psychological trauma in addition to physical harm. The silence into which she retreats — and in which she remains until she is back in Stamps and introduced to an encouraging adult friend who helps build her self-esteem — is indicative of what can happen in cases of abuse. When there is no solid support network of other individuals, abuse victims often simply internalize and shut down (Boyatzis, p. 221). At this point in her life and in the story, Maya does not need the freedom and licentiousness of St. Louis, but rather the comfort and support of her home in Stamps.

Conclusion

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings tells a true tale, but it does so in such a way that each element is just as important as it would be in a work of fiction. The setting of each scene in Angelou's life story neatly matches the plot points and the character development — not through literary contrivance, but through necessity. It is simply how the story happened. Had her story unfolded in different places, it would certainly have been a different story.