There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

In Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, there is a scene with the character when he/she says, “there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” In other words, people go through trauma and conflicts, but it does not have to overtake you, you can still grow from the bad, you can use it to show that you are strong and help others who are going through the same thing(s).

The novel is something that could help many people who have been through trauma. She helps others using her trauma instead of getting pity for it. You can go through stuff, and learn from it, grow from it, and become a better person because of it.

One of the themes this quote evokes is freedom. Freedom is the ability to have free will and to do things without permission. For example, having the ability to walk outside and scream. The restraint or hindrance for one’s thoughts, actions, and words is nonexistent nowadays. There are no persons who control our actions, comments, or thoughts. There is no certain way we are supposed to control these things either. Saying this, Maya Angelou had no freedom and did not have the “right” to tell her story or speak her mind. Instead, she had to wait years to tell her story and knows how it feels not to be able to unleash the trauma, the pain, the misery, the story.

Maya Angelou’s novel I know why the caged bird sings talks about how Maya held in everything she had gone through until she could tell and help others around her. When she was then able, she told her story, fought for herself and others, and made the world a better place.