Please point to some specific examples of symbolism in chapters 1-5 of Maya Angelou's novel I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

Symbolism can be an effective technique in writing, and
various examples of symbolism can be found in Maya Angelou’s novel I Know Why
the Caged Bird Sings. Among the examples of symbolism in the first five
chapters of the novel are the following:

• The
  very first words of the book symbolize a number of important themes of the rest of the
  novel, including travel, instability, family tensions, and family relations, especially
  Marguerite’s close relationship with her brother
  Bailey:

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When I was three and Bailey four, we had arrived
in the musty little town, wearing tags on our wrists which instructed – “To Whom It May
Concern” – that we were Marguerite and Bailey Johnson Jr. . .
.

Our parents had decided to put an end to their calamitous
marriage, and Father had shipped us home to his
mother.

These sentences also
immediately symbolize that this will be a book rooted in the narrator’s memory, and they
imply that the book will tell the story of the narrator’s life and
development.

• The opening sentence of Chapter 2
  symbolizes the important theme of education in the
  novel:

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When Bailey was six and I a year younger, we used
to rattle off the times tables . .
.

• In the middle of
  Chapter 3, a white lawman warns that one of Marguerite’s male relatives had better “lay
  low” since a black man is suspected of being sexually involved with a white woman, and
  the local Ku Klux Klan are out for revenge. This incident symbolizes the importance of
  race and racial tensions in the novel as well as the importance of sexuality as a major
  theme in the book.


• Chapter 4 opens with the following
  sentence:

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What sets one Southern town apart from another,
or from a Northern town or hamlet, or city
high-rise?

This sentence
symbolizes the importance of geography and social conditions as important themes in the
novel. During the course of the book, Marguerite and her brother live in various kinds
of places in various parts of the country, and their experiences are inevitably affected
by the differences between these various sorts of geographical
locations.

• Early in Chapter 5, Marguerite
  explains that one of her relatives believed that
  

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The impudent child was detested by God and a
shame to its parents and could bring destruction to its house and
line.

This sentence
symbolizes such important themes of the novel as the relations between children and
adults; the pressures to conform to social standards; the importance of religious belief
to some of the characters; and the way the adult Marguerite looks back with wry
amusement on some of the incidents and people of her childhood.