Recovery from Trauma in Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Abstract

The aim of this research is to analyze trauma of the main character in Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings who is Maya herself, and come up at the end with her recovery. This book was selected because it seems to hold very important themes which can change many lives. Literature plays its significant role in this book, and thanks to it Maya could manage her serious situations and psychological state to shift from her trauma, insecurity and feeling of shamefulness to self-confidence, race pride and speech recovery. This research includes two chapters where the first one contains a theoretical presentation of the African-American society and literature in the 20th century, as well as the definition of trauma, its types and effects on the person. On the other hand, the second chapter is devoted to analyze trauma and recovery in this book. In this case the author’s or the major character’s trauma is analyzed from a psychological perspective in order to examine her inner state and feeling as a child who experienced trauma at an early age and how she succeeded to free herself from these cages and traumas throughout literature and her desire for the change. The conclusions that are reached from this research are the importance and power of literature and reading books in Maya’s life, how they could do miracles in changing her situation from the worse to the better, and her survival after all what she went through.