SOURCE: Arensberg, Liliane K. “Death as Metaphor of Self in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” CLA Journal 20, no. 2 (December 1976): 273–91.

In the following essay, Arensberg asserts that despite the often witty tone of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the primary theme of the narrative is death.

When I think about myself, I almost laugh myself to death, My life has been one great big joke, A dance that's walked A song that's spoke I laugh so hard I almost choke When I think about myself. 

—Maya Angelou

In 1970, at a time when most blacks and a growing number of liberal whites affirmed the ad-campaign motto that “Black is Beautiful,” Maya Angelou's autobiography was published. An un-beautiful, awkward, rather morose, dreamy, and “too-big Negro girl,” young Maya Angelou seems an unlikely heroine. Neither the pretty and radiant prom queen of her all-black high school, like Anne...