Confusion And Reconstruction Of Marguerite's Ethical Identity In I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

American black female writer Maya Angelou,who enjoys the reputation of "the most dazzling black biographer in America",is one of the most influential female writers in the 20th century.She has made a lot of achievements in poetry and novel creation.Her works are very realistic,showing various problems in American society at that time,revealing the rich inner world and living state of black men and women in America,and containing her demand for equal rights for black people.Her autobiographical novel I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,focusing on her childhood and adolescence experience,tells the spiritual growth path of an African American girl,shows the spiritual outlook and ethical values of American society in the middle of the last century,and expresses the author's profound ethical concern for black women.The thesis consists of five chapters.The chapter one,introductory part,mainly combs domestic and foreign research results and current situation of Angelo and her work I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,and then explains the research questions,research methods and research significance.The main part of the thesis uses the theory of literary ethical criticism to study the ethical identity of the protagonist.The second chapter discusses Marguerite's acceptance of early ethical identity.In her childhood,she lived in a traditional town in the American South and was deeply influenced by traditional ethical thoughts and norms.The young Marguerite recognized the ethical identity given by the society and the moral connotation behind her identity,which was embodied that her behaviors observed the traditional moral norms.In the third chapter,after entering the modern city,Marguerite's ethical identity has changed.Under the impact of two different ethical systems,traditional and modern,her self-consciousness has gradually awakened,and she began to question the former ethical identity,so she fell into the confusion of ethical identity.The fourth chapter analyzes the methods,process and results of Marguerite's construction of ethical identity,and analyzes how she combined various factors and influences to resist the oppression of black women imposed by unreasonable ethical system through external and internal forces when she was faced with various ethical problems caused by identity confusion,so as to build a positive ethical identity.The chapter sums up Maya Angelo's ethical thoughts on black women in American society.She criticizes that the society oppresses and exploits black women by employing unreasonable ethical norms.She calls for an ethical concept of justice,equality and fraternity.She believes that people should unite to fight against the unreasonable ethical order,which is still of great significance at present.In the conclusion section,it generalizes the preceding parts and points out the main purpose of this article.When people's understanding of their own ethical identity is inconsistent with the identity imposed by the society,there will be ethical identity confusion.Black women should take the ethical responsibility to improve unhealthy ethnic relations and alienated family relations,and accurately position their identity in the society and family,so as to have a valuable life.Literary ethical criticism emphasizes that the basic function of literature lies in its instructive function.This thesis aims to analyze and explain all kinds of social phenomena and characters' fate from the perspective of ethics,discuss the moral choices and results made by characters in the predicament,and obtain moral education and warning from them,so as to provide ethical enlightenment for people to think about black women's problems and references.