A New Historicist Study On The Characters In I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

Maya Angelou(1928-2014)is one of the most influential black female writers in American literature.During her life,she wrote about seven autobiographical novels,the first of them is I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,which has been highly praised since its publication.In this novel,Maya Angelou describes the real living condition of black people in detail.It also reflects the long-time oppression on black people from the white-dominated society and a male-dominated culture.Scholars from China and other countries always focus on the research from Feminism,Bildungsroman and other perspectives.But they rarely make the New Historicist study on it.This thesis attempts to analyze,by close reading,the relationships among the characters in this novel from the perspective of New Historicism.This thesis tries to analyze the relationships among characters in the novel from two aspects: subversion and containment.Firstly,compared with traditional writings,Maya Angelou took a new writing style from subversion.And she created many fresh characters,three female characters among them are particularly presented: a brave grandmother,a fashionable mother and a smart and spiritual mentor.Maya Angelou described their courage and attitudes when they were in the face of racial and sex discrimination.What’s more,Maya Angelou’s own growth experiences are also the subversion on mainstream social ideology.In addition,male characters in the novel are also the main subversion power on mainstream ideology.Secondly,subversion is the resistance on ruling class,while containment is the control on subversive force.The white could insult the black and deprive their rights randomly;men could treat the black women in any way they want.Although the black people are eager for independence,freedom and equality,they have to be contained by the oppression from mainstream ideology again.At last,they have to be the victim of the dominated class.The black people spare no efforts to subvert the traditional mainstream ideology and their behaviors have subversive effects.However,their subversion have to be contained by mainstream ideology in the end.The interaction between subversion and containment is reflected in the novel,and the contradictory relationships between the black people and mainstream ideology still exist presumably for a long time.