I Know Why The Caged Bird Analysis

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Pages: 2

Vengeance
In Maya Angelou's memoir I know why the caged bird sings, child Maya is raped by Mr Freeman. Mr Freeman is later convicted and sentenced to one year and one month in prison. However, Mr Freeman was beaten to death in retaliation to his crime. This brings up several questions about society: should we punish crimes or rehabilitate criminals, is it okay for people to go outside the law to get justice, what is justice and is it justified or vengeance.

Should prisons exist for rehabilitation or punishment? Ancient civilizations primarily punished for vengeance or fairness. An eye for an eye, was a popular way of punishing criminals for early man. Most modern civilizations have differing punishments for different crimes; stabbing someone in the eye could have less consequences than a drug offense or treason. In some ways this makes a lot of sense; one could stab someone accidentally, and treason could put many people at risk. This way of thinking can lead to a different type of idea. Namely, should punishment be distributed to protect citizens and discourage criminals or to punish criminals and give victims justice. This
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Civil rights is a great example of this. In America, a consensual relationship between a black man and a white woman used to be met with harsh penalties, even death. Now such a relationship is not that big of a deal. But how is this decided? Who decides what is right and what is wrong? Usually the general population determines what is right and wrong through social norms. However, social norms only benefit the majority and in retrospect can be very wrong. A perfect example would be the Salem witch trials. At the time burning suspected witches at the stake was perfectly acceptable, while now burning anybody at the stake for any reason is frowned upon. By this logic, future humans will probably frown upon a practice that we see as normal, as