The Defining Impact of Books in Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Abstract

Initially autobiographies started out as a means to express oneself, but the growing scholarly interest between what constitutes truth and fiction, along with an avid interest in personal life has brought new prominence to the genre of autobiography. Every autobiographical work tends to be a cry for the expression of identity and every autobiographical study yearns to understand the evolution of the individual. Ethically, reason dictates that every autobiographical work is obliged to speak the truth, but many a time the thin line between fact and fiction gets blurred. This intentional and delicate blurring of lines is unavoidable due to the situations or events that feature in an autobiographical work, where moral issues of privacy come into play. As a generally regarded rule, writers are expected to stay true to the cultural, political, economic, religious and the historical scenarios of their time. Writing an autobiography also tends to be highly cathartic to the author, it gives him/her a chance to redefine the ‘self’ critically and arrive at a place of acceptance.