Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: The Case of Critical Resistance

Critical resistance is a fine balance between emancipatory and reactionary resistance. These two forms of resistance are the paradoxical responses to power dynamics between the oppressor and the oppressed. The paradox arises from the identical projection of ethical and social resistance performed by the oppressor in the name of domination and by the oppressed in the name of emancipation. The oppressor resorts to reactionary resistance in the face of emancipatory resistance of the oppressed in the natural urge for freedom. But, these two forms of resistance differ in the political motif and ethical perspective towards it. This philosophical issue is crucial in the context of one’s social and ethical relationship with the racial other. Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (2004) presents the distinction between emancipatory and reactionary resistance as a relevant theoretical concern because the text, according to Walker (1999), illustrates three distinctive stages of resistance in the developmental continuum of active resistance. The article forms a critical response to Walker’s contention that Angelou’s resistance to racial oppression is active as well as reactionary by arguing that Angelou combines Momma’s antebellum political strategy of subtle but ethical resistance with her mother Vivian’s Blues tradition of reactionary as well as active resistance into a critical resistance in which she prioritizes good conscience to maintain a socially and ethically sound relation with the racial other. The article follows a close reading of the text to establish Angelou’s proclamation of critical resistance and consults theories of Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, and Emmanuel Levinas on resistance, freedom, and the social and ethical responsibility of the one towards the other.