RE-CONCEPTUALIZING WOMEN’S VOICE IN MAYA ANGELOU’S I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS

Abstract

This paper critically analyzes Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings to show how females writers conceptualize their voices through their autobiographies. The conceptual framework for the study would be feminism theory in general and Nancy Hartsock’s feminist standpoint theory in particular. Its socially constructed phenomenon, that who has right to speak and who has to remain silent. Autobiographies have explanatory and evaluative frameworks in which events, people, and places are interconnected in terms of motivations, intentions, and psychological states.  Our self-created stories  or autobiographies determine our relation to others in time and space. Feminist theorists of autobiography raise the question about rights of women’s writings. They try to find out the relation of voice and silence within concepts of place and power. One can has power through place and voice can be emerged through power only.  Hence, this paper focuses on the elements of autobiography in Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Birds Sing to find the relationship between voice and silence in the sphere of power and place