Patrick Park
Mrs. Dover
English 201-2
30/August/2013
The relationships between Maya and Baily
In the book “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, Maya Angelou is the protagonist, but also the author of the book. She lives in the rural South, the cities of St. Louis, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Also because the novel takes place in the time period of great depression, there was still racism left between whites and blacks. The book shows how fragile but also strong a black female can be in such an environment she was in.
Maya has a brother named Baily, who is of course African American also, but because Maya had the ugly appearance than her brother, the racism towards Maya was much more than Baily. Baily took care of Maya in early part of the book, but as the book progresses he turns away from her slowly after Maya get raped to protect him from despair.
There are some examples showing the bond between Maya and Baily in earlier of the book. In the book page 22, Maya was being teased by the old lady because of her ugliness. Anyhow, Baily sees it and says "Oh Mizeriz Coleman, how is your son? I saw him the other day, and he looked sick enough to die." (Pg. 22) To the lady to get the attention away from Maya. The second example is when Baily finds out Maya was raped my Mr. Freeman and tells to Grandmother Baxter. After Grandmother Baxter gets Mr. Freeman arrested, Mr. Freeman threatens Baily to kill him for tattling, but Baily didn’t seem to be concerned. This suggests that he cared more about her well-being than his own.
On the other hand, there are some facts how Baily’s action changed. "When spring came to St. Louis, I took out my first library card, and since Bailey and I seemed to be growing apart, I spent most of my days at the library" (pg. 76) as it is shown in the quote, they had a point when they had to get separated