To_What_Extent_Does_Angelou_Achieve_Self-Actualisation_in_‘I_Know_Why_the_Caged_Bird_Sings’

To what extent does Angelou achieve self-actualisation in ‘I know why the caged bird sings’ ‘I know why the caged bird sings’ is an established autobiographical book which has been written by Maya Angelou, a highly respected woman mostly known as ‘one of the most renowned and influential voices of our time.’ Self actualisation has been described as ‘The motivation to realize one's own maximum potential and possibilities.’ Angelou, by the end of the book, have not achieved fully self actualisation described thoroughly by Maslow’s theory. This autobiographical novel primarily is an expression of the segregation, and self-actualization. The novel works particularly effectively throughout the use of structure, description and events that happened. This commentary is going to adapt Maslow’s triangle to judge whether Angelou did achieve self-actualisation. First of all, at the beginning of the book, we realise that momma, Angelou’s grandmother, is going to be the one to look after both Bailey and Maya after being ‘shipped’ away by their parents. As a young child, her physiological needs is been fulfilled as momma has an established store which she has ‘owned for 25 years’. The store is ‘in the heart of the of the Negro area’ and ‘over the years it became the lay centre of activities in town’. This entirely means that momma, who is rich enough to lend other people money is definitely capable of providing food, water, shelter, warmth. This therefore shows that Maya Angelou is a step closer to achieve self-actualisation but this is not necessarily a significant step. In order to gain the safety section of Maslow's triangle, she needs to achieve things like security of body, family, moral etc. As well as basic needs, a child has to be trained morally to do the right thing to make self-actualisation easier. Momma, being stereotypical black woman, has decided to train Bailey and Maya (e.g. hardworking skills) the traditional way for instance according to Maya, ‘before she’ (momma) ‘had quite arisen, she calls ‘our names and issued order…’ These types of childhood training makes it easier for Maya to achieve even more self-actualisation when she gets older as we see later happens in her life. It might have been as a result of this basic childhood training that made Maya Angelou is the woman that she is today. On the other hand, we can see that Maya didn’t fully achieve the safety section because security of body and self-esteem is a big part of the section. Therefore she hasn’t achieved this as at the beginning (in the prologue of the book) she describes herself as a ‘too-big Negro girl, with nappy black hair, broad feet and a space between her teeth that would hold a number-two pencil’ and this is also reflected also in the end when she describes herself as a 16-year old girl with ‘sadly undeveloped’ breast, and hands and feet that are also ‘far from being feminine and dainty’. These two parallels appears to show that Maya still isn’t still proud of body. Some people will disagree with me by saying that there is a different focus at the end of the chapter because at the beginning, her ignorance was directed at the fact that she was black and the end was more focused at her body itself which was perfectly normal for a 16-year-old to be feeling. We can also point to the fact Maya called herself a ‘negro’ and describes herself stereotypical at what everyone perceive is black and ugly. It has almost reached the point when she believes she is white herself. At that point, Maya couldn’t have any self-actualization herself because she is willing and accepting what everyone thinks of her physically. This comes out strongly when described how ugly her mass dress was. Perhaps Maya wanted a very strong introduction to the racism that used to be a massive thing that used to happen at her time. Though ,as a reader, I find it effective since we can see that racism was a part of life that a black person was calling herself’ negro’ therefore on the other hand the introduction was done in a very subtle way, it was hard to capture the big theme that ran in the book. Therefore this shows a very weak foundation for Maya if she was really to achieve self-actualisation. The next section of Marslows’s triangle of needs involves her feeling a sense of love and belonging. Family can play a big part for her achieving this. There is a sense of unsettlement throughout most of the book because she is constantly being moved to and from her parents to her momma then back to her mother’s etc. This means she’s had a lot of experience for some, good and for others bad. For example in chapter 27, during the world war II, she gets first-hand experience that people of different race can co-exist together but not actually together when she says ‘as the Japanese disappeared, soundlessly and without protest, the negroes entered their loud jukeboxes’. This metaphorically represents the way the society is changing with how these two different groups, who have so much racism in common, could not sympathise with another. The readers can see the awe that she feels at their naivety. These make her think even more about how the society is. Thinking is good in helping people achieve self-actualisation because at a result, they are indirectly thinking about how things are in association to them and their feelings. Also chapter 11 to chapter 13 plays a big part in Maya Angelou achieving self-actualisation. It was the loss of comfort and parental love that drove her easily, unfortunately, to the arms of Mr Freeman, her mom’s boyfriend. Her naïve self describes the rape as good; she felt ‘he’ had ‘held her so softly that’ she ‘wished he’d never let’ her ‘go or never let any bad ever happen to’ her. ‘This was probably’ her ‘father and we have found each other at last’. The fact that she said the ‘have found each other at last’ explain the fact that subconsciously she had been feeling a longing for someone to treat her like a child as a parent should. At this point, she feels emotionally attached to him and trusted him. This displays how weak and easily mislead she is in terms of believing people. This is in parallel of her still believing she is ugly as a ‘negro’. Maya believes that the rape, and Mr. Freeman’s death, is her fault-first, because she liked when he held her, and then because she lied about how many times he had touched her in court. She thinks of herself as a bad girl, so bad that she has to stop talking so that she won't make things worse for everyone around her. We can see this contrast with the end of the book when she realises daddy Clidell,’who turned out to be the first real father I would know’. She has grown mentally enough to know the role each people should play in her life and understanding others is a very big step to understanding to the best. To achieve love and belonging according to Maslow’s triangle, sexual intimacy might be part of achieving self- actualisation. Though at 16 it is perfectly normal for a girl to have those ‘phases’ when she is worried about a lot of things including her appearance but it is quite extreme doubting once sexuality and it can only be derived if one’s confidence is really low. Maya dedicating the whole of chapter 27 must show how it plays a significant part in her life which is understandable as it resulted her having a child. As a result of her having low confidence in herself, Maya is shown to not have achieved self-actualisation. When Maya is faced in a difficult situation, she always seem to look for answer from other people or other source for example at the end when faced during her lesbianism paranoia, she ‘gnawed into unsatisfying books and her unstocked mind without finding a morsel of peace or understanding’. Her ‘gnawed’ shows her hardworking and searching she was at it therefore believing strongly that the books will tell her what she herself is and like other sources apart from your true self, she deemed it ‘unsatisfying’. We can therefore see that she doesn’t trust herself at all and to achieve self-actualisation you have to be able to trust yourself to achieve the best that you can do. At the end of the book Maya finally gives birth to her son who we can know she loves so much that ‘totally’ at her ‘possession’, she ‘was afraid to touch him’. People say that caring for someone can help people find one self so they would say that at this point in the book; she might have managed to be on her way to achieving self-actualisation. She cares for him so much that she is scared of crushing him at bed but In the middle of the night, Mother wakes Maya and shows her that she has unconsciously moved the baby next to her, protecting it under her arm. Mother says, "See, you don't have to think about doing the right thing. If you're for the right thing, then you do it without thinking. As a result of this we can say that Maya will begin to rust herself which will be a very good attribute in her achieving self-actualisation. In conclusion, I think that Maya Angelou hasn’t yet achieved self-actualisation as she still hasn’t trusted herself to do things that she wants to do i.e. her ambitions to become the first black conductor. On the other hand we can say that as she has achieved most of all of the levels in Maslow’s triangle, she is very close to achieving self-actualisation.