Quest for Identity-A Thematic Study on Select Novels of Maya Angelou

Abstract

Through the device of writing autobiography, Maya Angelou shared her quest for human individuality, identifying her personal struggle with the general conditions of the Black Americans, which take up role not only in relation to the Black Americans, but also in relation to the very idea of America. Her autobiographies celebrate the richness and vitality of Southern Black life that persist in the face of poverty and racial prejudice. Initially, her celebration of the Southern Black life is revealed through the portrait of the author’s life as a black child in Arkansas of the 1930s in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. The second delineated a young woman struggling to create an existence striving to achieve a promising life and love in America during post-World War II in Gather Together in My Name.