The Cages Of Maya Angelou Maya Angelou wrote an amazing and entertaining autobiography titled I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, about her hard life growing up as a black girl from the South. Among the hardships are metaphores known as "cages". "Cages" are things that keep people from succeeding in life and being everything they want to be. Some of Maya Angelou's cages include being black in the 1940's, and her overbearing grandmother. For myself a major "cage" is being young. A major "cage" from Maya Angelou's youth was that she was black in a prejudice sou