English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

This paper analyses racial and gender trauma evoking the tormented state of the narrator, Maya in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Based on the cultural trauma, the researcher analyses the experiences of depressed African American women without identities. The narrator struggles to develop her dignified self and nonconformist outlook comes to block her after she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend Mr. Freeeman. The mysterious murder of her rapist creates the guilt, shame in her psychic as she thinks that she is responsible for his murder. The narrator suffering from the guilt and self-loathing results in her psychic turmoil. She stops speaking to people except her brother, Bailey. In the novel, Angelou tries to raise the voice of Black women to achieve dignified identity in the white racist and sexist America looking back on her childhood experiences. In this regard, this research aims to show reasons that cause the traumatic situation in the narrator due to several events that erupt in African American societies. Not only this, this research work explores issues related to the cause of racial and gender trauma and discusses how the narrator succeeds in working through trauma while in some cases the narrator just acts out it. Key Words: Race, Gender, Cultural trauma, Psychic turmoil, identity, self

Gender and racial trauma in Angelou’s <i>I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings</i>