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Critical Essay #3: The Coming-of-Age Theme
(outline)
Growing up is an
important stage in our life as it brings us not
only happiness but
also sorrow, just
like
a
penny with its two
paragraph 27, 28 and 32 of
Maya
Angelou’s classic autobiography “I Know Why the
Caged Bird Sings”, we can
feel
the
pain
and
difficulty
of
Maya
and
Bailey’s
coming
-of-age
chapter
27,28
and
32,
Angelou,
relying
on
both
literal
and
figurative
imagery,
brings out the coming-of-age theme as
she portrays Maya taking major steps in
her process of growth and change
regarding the sub-themes of displacement, the
inter-related
strengths
of
her
self-
confidence
and
self-esteem,
and
also
independence.
Firstly
，
Angelou
mentioned after her coming of age, there was no
longer only the
emotion of
displacement, there was feeling of fitting in. In
chapter 27, paragraph
8
Angelou
mentioned
that
“
Then
the
city
acted
in
wartime
like
an
intelligent
woman
under
siege
.
She
gave
what
she
couldn’t
with
safety
withhold,
and
secured those things
which lay in her reach…Friendly but never gushing,
cool but
not
frigid
or
distant,
distinguished
without
the
awful
stiffness
”.
(Citation:
paragraph
8).
As
Angelou
mentioned,
the
city
she
lived
is
a
wise
woman
who
takes
and gives properly and she became the ideal of she
wanted to be as a grown
up.
This image
is
a
personification
therefore
the
wise
woman
is
San
Francisco,
the city. She personified the city and
her idol wasn’t anyone b
ut the city,
directly
showed her sense of belonging
in this city. It’s a sign of growing up in this
city.
Also, the characteristic she
wanted to have in this example, implying her
mother,
Vivian, which shows she is
mature enough to have her own chapter 27,
Paragraph
8,
Angelou
mentioned
that
“The
air
of
collective
displacement,
the
impermanence of life in wartime and the
gauche personalities of the more recent
arrivals
tended
to
dissipate
my
own
sense
of
not
belonging.
This
image
is
a
metaphor
therefore
the
air
is
the
collective
displacement
of
the
blacks
coming