Making Maya Angelou The Person She Is Essay, Research Paper

The events, encounters, and the environment that you are in are all things that shape your life in both positive and negative ways. Maya Angelou, the author of the autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings did not have a fairy tale childhood. There were valuable lessons learned by Maya from the events that she faced, from the people she met, and from the places she journeyed. Everything that happened to her made her stronger and created the person that Mrs. Angelou grew to be, and whom she became.

Maya was faced with many different events, many which challenged her. When Marguerite was only a child her parents sent her and her brother, Bailey, to live with their grandparents in Stamps, Arkansas. Maya did not experience a family with a mother and father. She did not even know her parents until her father came and took her and Bailey to St. Louis. The adolescent girl was moving again. Living with her mother and her mother?s boyfriend Mr. Freeman would change her life forever, after she was raped by Mr. Freeman. Maya moved to Stamps after St. Louis, but later she went to live with her mother in Los Angles, California. Living in California was nothing like outdated Stamps. Marguerite Angelou moved around numerous times giving her more experiences than she would find in Stamps.

Maya encountered many different people, many different kinds of people. Maya?s grandmother shaped her life immensely. Maya’s grandmother raised her, and taught her about only good, she gave Maya a good home when she needed one, and taught her to be a good person. At a picnic in Stamps young Maya met Louise, her best friend. Louise was someone Angelou could talk to and share her secrets with. One of Maya?s most important encounters was her parents, first her father and then her mother. Mrs. Angelou?s father was a tall handsome man, she thought very highly of him when she was younger, until she learned more about him when she was older. Maya?s mother was a very attractive woman whom she also appreciated. Her mother watched out for her, and supported her in what she did. Maya?s mother might have been one of the most important people in her life she always believed in her daughter and supported her.

Maya experienced very different environments. She lived in the simple black community of Stamps, Arkansas. Many people in Stamps would stay there and not get a good education. Maya did not stay in Stamps, she first went to St. Louis, and experienced a very urban environment of big buildings and city streets. Angelou also moved to California, which was very different from St. Louis and even more different from Stamps. She was in a suburban environment for the first time ever. In California she got a job on a street car, making herself the first black woman to work on a street car, she also had a child. Marguerite became the most adult, and grew considerably in the Californian environment, which just might have impacted her the most out of all the places she has lived.

Everything Maya did, everyone she met, and every different surrounding she was in simulated her life in so many ways. The constant changing environments gave her a variety of background. The people that she encountered guided her through life, brought joy to her life, and some even hurt Maya, all of which made her a stronger person. There were so many different events that happened in this woman?s years of growing up, all of which enhanced Angelou?s experiences of life. Everything happens for a reason and all the positive and negative things that happened to Maya Angelou made her a more powerful person and constituted the person she grew up to be.