When Angelou told her uncles about her abuse, they responded by beating Mr F.
In 1935 Angelou was sexually abused and subsequently raped by Mr F., her mother’s boyfriend. Angelou reported experiencing low self-esteem and poor body image and she frequently compared herself unfavourably to her beautiful mother, brother, and father ( Angelou, 2004 Lupton, 1998). In 1934, when Angelou was 6 years old, she moved to live with her mother.
Momma provided a strict religious upbringing that was devoid of any overt expressions of love – both physical and verbal ( Angelou, 2004, 2013). Her parents separated soon after her birth ( Agins, 2013 Angelou, 2004 Lupton, 1998) and Angelou spent her early childhood years living with her paternal grandmother (Momma) in Arkansas ( Agins, 2013 Angelou, 2013 Lupton, 1998). Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Ann Johnson on the 4th of April 1928. As such, this analysis focuses on the first 40 years of her life, in keeping with the focus in her autobiographies.Maya Angelou: A Brief Biography The books, beginning with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings ( Angelou, 2004), span the first 40 years of her life and are used in this analysis to chart her engagement with, and relationship to, meaning. Angelou chronicled this period of her life through her extensive autobiographies containing personal commentary and reflexive engagement with her socio-historical milieu ( Angelou, 2004). This psychobiographical study explores meaning making processes in the early life and young adulthood of Maya Angelou, an acclaimed African American female poet, author, playwright, and teacher. This study provides a more in-depth understanding of meaning making processes in the lives of extraordinary individuals, as well as contributing to the development of the research method of psychobiography, with a specific focus on meaning making. The three tiers of the fundamental triad (awareness of meaning, will to meaning, freedom of will) were present in various aspects of Angelou’s existential journey, manifesting as a focus on choice, responsibility, purpose, and acceptance. Angelou’s narrative of her journey through the physical (childhood and adolescence), psychological (travelling and searching years) and spiritual (sensemaking years) dimensions was core to her meaning making. The search for meaning within Angelou’s own narrative of her life was clearly apparent in the thematic analysis. Data was extracted, organised and analysed according to established qualitative research methods as well as through the identification of psychological saliences. The primary data source was Angelou’s own published autobiographies, which contain an in-depth narrative of her early life and young adulthood. This psychobiography focuses on meaning making in the early life and young adulthood of acclaimed African American author Maya Angelou (1928-2014) through the lens of Frankl’s existential psychology with a specific focus on the tri-dimensional nature of human beings and the fundamental triad.