Читать книгу Constructing the Self. Essays on Southern Life-Writing онлайн

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A classic African American narrative at the end of the Civil Rights era, however, is less activist-oriented than it serves to chronicle the life of a larger-than-life figure. I refer to Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970). While its most engaging sections are located on southern territory, it nonetheless depicts Angelou in St. Louis, San Francisco, and part of Mexico. Caged Bird is the first in a serial life narrative from Angelou that covers several volumes. It engages as much for its creation of a legendary figure as it does in portraying the folk culture of rural Arkansas that Angelou credits with being the primary shaping force in her life. Again, the individual trajectory of the narrative takes precedence over the communal trajectory, though Angelou does record several instances of southern racism that affected the entire community in which she lived, such as a white doctor’s refusal to pull her aching tooth because, he avers, he would rather put his hand into a dog’s mouth than into the mouth of a Negro. Angelou went on from such misadventures to become active in the Civil Rights movement, and she actually rubbed elbows with Martin Luther King Jr., but personality is the major thing that dominates Caged Bird, not communal issues.