Seventeen syllables

By Hisaye Yamamoto
-discribes the first time Rosie
realized her mother wrote haikus
-haiku represents a kind of Oriental
religious and poetic experience
Her mother reads her haiku she has
written and Rosie pretends to
enjoy and understand it-this is the
first hint of deception
-the theme is one of deception,
which can be seen at various points
through the story ‘’Rosie and her
father lived for a while with two
women, her mother and Ume
Hanazono’’
Hanazono-means a ‘’flower
garden’’
Tome- a symbol -japanes husband
Ume-which blosoms and bears fruit
just in three months
17-symbol of communist
Conclusion
-the story elaborates on the
priceeding destruction of woman
who aspires and initiates
independently.

I Know Why the Caged Bird

Sings by Maya Angelou
The action begins in Stamps,
Arkansas, in a black ghetto where
the Maya lives with her
grandmother and paralyzed uncle.
Later, the setting shifts to St. Louis,
San Francisco, and Southern.
The protagonist of the novel is
Maya. As a young child, she is sent
to live with her grandmother
because her parents are getting a
divorce.
The main theme of the novel is the
pain of learning about life, coming-
of-age, and accepting oneself. It is
the story of one girl’s fight for
survival in a cruel world. The novel
also deals with themes of racism,
sexism. The mood of the text is
both tense and nostalgic. As she
looks at her past, the narrator is
sometimes frightened, sometimes
amused, and sometimes sad. She
peppers her narration with adult
commentary on the tragedy of
being a confused child.