As Maya approaches maturity, she becomes more aggressive, more willing to take risks to establish her autonomy. The set-to with Daddy Bailey's live-in girlfriend is one of the liberating elements of the final chapters of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Maya's large, awkward frame and lack of refinement contrasts with Dolores's arrogance, daintiness, and fastidiousness; clearly, Maya is destined for trouble in the confines of the trailer that houses the three of them. She competes both consciously and unconsciously for Daddy Bailey's approval, pleasing him with her ability to converse in Spanish and her flexibility and graciousness on the doomed trip to the outskirts of Ensenada. Bailey, aware of the battle for his attention, laughs in self-congratulory amusement. Dolores, whom Maya characterizes as "mean and petty and full of pretense," is oblivious to the sadistic delight Bailey takes in pitting female against female.
Suspecting shady motives after Bailey deserts her temporarily at the cantina, Maya, unaware that he is off getting drunk with a local woman, fears that she has been bartered as a bride to a border guard. Her frank appraisal of Bailey's egocentric character and dubious principles suggests a destructive inadequacy in the man who should be a major figure in her life. As her mind toys with her father's affront to his only daughter, she bursts into hysterical tears, which Angelou characterizes with serio-comic precision. Ridiculing her reputation for brilliance, Maya gamely sets out to drive the fifty descending miles to Calexico.
