Answer:
In “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Marguerite is like the caged bird in the poem “The Caged Bird” because she feels that she is in a cage because she is discriminated because she is black and physically tortured by her mother's boyfriend and confines herself from everyone but her brother.
Step-by-step explanation:
"I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" is an autobiographical novel by an American writer and poet Maya Angelou. The author has used this autobiography to bring to light the issues of racism, identity, literacy, etc. The title of "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" is taken from the extract of the poem written by Dunbar "Sympathy".
"Caged Bird" poem, again, written by Maya Angelou talks about a bird who is in a cage and its wings are clipped and is tied in chains but its mouth is not tied so he opens his mouth to sing for freedom. In the same manner, the protagonist of "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" when lost her voice after being tortured physically by her mother's boyfriend Mr. Freeman, went mute but eventually finds her voice when encouraged by Mrs. Bertha Flowers.
According to scholar Joanne M. Braxton, Caged Bird is "the fully developed black female autobiographical form that began to emerge in the 1940s and 1950s."