LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 24:10 October 2024
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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Everyday Resistance to Racism in Maya Angelou’s Testimonial Narrative
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Md. Maruf Ul Alam, Ph.D.


Courtesy: www.amazon.com

Abstract

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the first volume of Maya Angelou’s seven-volume autobiography which I argue, as a testimonial narrative—a victim testimony in the first-person narrative in this case--portrays everyday resistance to both everyday racism and institutionalized racial discrimination. Everyday resistance represented in the narrative can also be termed as ‘resistance from below’ which is not recognized easily by dominant power structures. This testimony of trauma, resistance, and survival is both an individual and collective narrative, as it records poverty, rejection, discrimination, and violence experienced by Maya Angelou as an individual and by her people as a community.

Keywords: Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, autobiography, testimonial narrative, everyday racism, everyday resistance, survival.

The Spanish word testimonio, which roughly means testimonial narrative in English, refers to “a novel or novella-length narrative in book or pamphlet (that is, printed as opposed to acoustic) form, told in the first-person by a narrator who is the real protagonist or witness of the events he or she recounts, and whose unit of narration is usually a ‘life’ or a significant life experience” (Beverley 12-13).

Maya Angelou’s narrative fits into this category because a testimonial narrative may include “autobiography, autobiographical novel, oral history, memoir, confession, diary, interview, eyewitness report, life history, novela-testimonio, nonfiction novel, or ‘factographic literature’” (Beverley 13). To Oprah Winfrey, Maya’s narrative is a form of ‘revelation’ (“Foreword”).

Since Maya Angelou wrote about her lived experiences her narrative “connected her to the greater human truths—of longing, abandonment, security, hope, wonder, prejudice, mystery, and, finally, self-discovery: the realization of who you really are and the liberation that love brings. And each of those timeless truths unfolds in this first autobiographical account of her life” (Winfrey). A testimonial narrative is implicitly or explicitly a component of ‘resistance literature’ (Beverley 13).

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Md. Maruf Ul Alam, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of English
University of Chittagong
Chattogram-4331, Bangladesh
maruf@cu.ac.bd
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