List of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings characters

This is a list of characters from the 1969 autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou.

Primary characters

Marguerite Johnson ("Maya")

The main character, "an unlikely heroine", from whose perspective the story is told. She has been described as "a symbolic character for every black girl growing up in America". She goes from early childhood, when at the age of three, she and her older brother Bailey are sent to their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas, until she was sixteen, when she gives birth to her son Clyde. Through the character of Maya, Angelou uses her own childhood to demonstrate how she was able to survive as a black child in a white-dominated world. Maya is resilient, highly intelligent, and loves literature. She goes from feeling shame about her race and appearance to feeling pride, in spite of experiences of racism and trauma. She is raped at the age of eight by her mother's boyfriend and responds by choosing not to speak for five years, when she is brought out of her muteness by Mrs. Bertha Flowers, who introduces her to great literature.

Annie Henderson ("Momma")

Maya and Bailey's paternal grandmother, "a church-going, God-fearing woman whose store is the heart of black socializing in Stamps". She is the most important influence in Maya's life. Momma deals with racism by submitting to it without a struggle and by developing "a strategy of obedience", believing that to do any differently would be unsafe. Momma is tall, over six feet, and is very strong physically. She is wise, hard-working, and a good businesswoman. She is undemonstrative in her love for Maya but "uncompromising in that love". As Angelou writes, "A deep-brooding love hung over everything she touched".

Bailey Johnson, Jr.

Maya's brother, Bailey is a year older than her. He has the most influence on Maya's childhood. "He is bright, clever, and good-spirited". He was often her strongest supporter and ally. Maya measures others by her small-framed brother, who was her hero and "Kingdom Come". Maya and Bailey have an intense bond, and enjoy their private world of jokes. She is strengthened by his love and support; he is the only one able to comfort her after her rape, and becomes her voice when they return to Stamps. When he witnesses the murder of a black man by a group of white men, he is confused and unable to understand their hatred.

Uncle Willie

Maya and Bailey's uncle and Annie Henderson's son, he was crippled at the age of three when a babysitter dropped him. He walks with a cane. Early in Caged Bird, Momma hides him in a bin of potatoes and onions to avoid being detected by the Ku Klux Klan. He helps Momma run her store and shows Maya kindness to the point that she wishes that he could be her father. He is just as strict as Momma, however, beating Maya and Bailey after they disrupt a church service and threatening to burn her on a potbelly stove for not learning her multiplication tables.

Vivian Baxter Johnson ("Mother Dear")

Maya and Bailey's "glamorous if feckless mother". Maya is in awe of her beauty: she is "too beautiful to have children". Vivian captivates both her children with her worldiness and elation, especially Bailey. Maya is emotionally separated from her mother. Angelou stated later in her life that she recognized that her mother had abandoned her and her brother, which meant that Vivian was "a terrible parent of young children". She is concerned about providing for her children, but negligent towards them. When Maya becomes pregnant at the end of the book, Vivian accepts Maya and her child; it is the birth of her grandson that causes a connection between mother and daughter.

Bailey Johnson, Sr.

Maya and Bailey's "no-account daddy". He is tall and handsome, with a "smile as slick as brilliantine". He attempts to portray importance, but speaks in a halting manner. He is insensitive towards his children. "He represents the absent father, the man who is not there for his children, literally and figuratively". Bailey Sr. "has respect for neither morals nor money", but Maya is fascinated by his "ironic pretentiousness". He appears twice in Caged Bird, when he shows up in Stamps to drive his children to St. Louis, and when Maya visits him for a summer in San Diego.

Mr. Freeman

Vivian Baxter's boyfriend, he lives with Vivian and her family in St. Louis when Maya and Bailey are sent there to be with their mother. At first, he is a father substitute for Maya, who is hungry to be accepted by a male. He takes advantage of this by raping her, when she is eight years old, and then threatens to kill Bailey if she told anyone about it. Bailey encourages Maya to disclose what has happened, and Mr. Freeman goes to trial. He is found murdered, probably by Maya's uncles. Maya is so devastated and traumatized, she chooses to not speak for five years.

Mrs. Bertha Flowers

The "aristocrat of Stamps" and the town's "black intellectual", Mrs. Flowers is a "self-supporting, independent, graceful" black woman. She is the first person to treat Maya as an individual, and teaches her about the relationship between blacks and the larger society, as well as "the beauty and power of language". She gently nurses Maya out of her mutism by reading to her and by loaning her books that inspire Maya to speak again.

Minor characters

There are a number of minor characters in Caged Bird, members of the black and white community that fill out Maya's world and inform her influences and early experiences. Among the most notable are:

Sister Monroe

A member of the black church in Stamps. She is not always able to come to services, but when she does, she shouts as loud as possible to make up for her absences. Many humorous church-related anecdotes focus on her and her behavior.

Reverend Thomas

A "repulsive church official" that visits Stamps four times a year. Maya and Bailey depise him because he is obese and never remembers their names, and because he eats the best chicken pieces at Sunday dinner. One Sunday, Sister Monroe is so inspired by his preaching that she hits him over the head with her purse; his teeth fall out and onto the floor near Maya, which results in Maya and Bailey's uncontrollable laughter and subsequent beating by Uncle Willie.

Mr. McElroy

Momma's neighbor, and the only black man Maya has seen whose trousers match his jackets. She and Bailey admire him because he does not go to church, which makes him "courageous".

"Powhitetrash" girls

Three white rural girls who attempt to humiliate and intimidate Momma in front of her store when they taunt and expose themselves to her. Momma reacts by passively humming a spiritual, while Maya, watching from inside the store, weeps with shame and humiliation.

Dentist Lincoln

A white dentist who refuses to treat Maya's tooth pain, in spite of his debt to Momma, incurred during the Great Depression. He states that he would rather put his "hand in a dog's mouth than in a nigger's". Momma reacts to this with passivity, while Maya is horrified and dreams up an elaborate fantasy about Momma threatening the racist dentist.

Mrs. Viola Cullinan

Maya's employer when she is ten years old. She insists upon calling her "Mary" or "Margaret". Maya is unable to tolerate this because "whites called black people too many other names", so Maya deliberately tries to get fired. She finally succeeds by breaking Mrs. Cullinan's prized china.

Mr. Donleavy

A white man, he is the guest speaker at Maya's eighth grade graduation. He puts a pall over the ceremony and crushes the educational dreams of the audience by insinuating that black students are only capable of becoming athletes.

Henry Reed

The valedictorian of Maya's eighth grade class. He makes up for Mr. Donleavy's discouragement by leading the audience in "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing", the "Negro national anthem".

Miss Kirwin

Maya's teacher at George Washington High School in San Francisco. "A rare educator", she is white but shows no favoritism to her students based upon their race. Angelou states that she is "the only teacher I remembered", and probably the only white person who befriended her.

Baxter Family

When Maya and Bailey are sent to live with her mother when they are eight and nine, they stay with her family in St. Louis. Grandmother Baxter, Vivian's mother, is a neighborhood precinct leader of German/black descent who has connections with the local police. Tutti, Tom, and Ira are Vivian's brothers; they allegedly murder Mr. Freeman after he rapes Maya.

Dolores

Bailey Sr.'s girlfriend, who becomes jealous of Maya. After a violent argument, Maya runs away from her father's home and is homeless for a short while.

Daddy Clidell

Mother dear's boyfriend at first, they end up getting married. Mother dear leaves for a business trip to Alaska and when shes gone daddy Clidell doesn't pay enough attention to notice that Maya is pregnant.

References

• Angelou, Maya (1969). I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-375-50789-2
• Lupton, Mary Jane (1998). Maya Angelou: A critical companion. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-30325-8
• McPherson, Dolly A. (1999). "Initiation and self-discovery". In Maya Angelou's I know why the caged bird sings: A casebook, Joanne M. Braxton, ed. New York: Oxford Press. ISBN 0-1951-1606-2