Adversity In Poetry

The intriguing thing about this poem is it’s use of the imagery of a bird, the first line is the audience being addressed as “little bird” something that could easily be a childhood nickname, “Fly away little bird / Fly away to a better place / Where you will soar through the sky / In the wide open space” This is a simple verse of the author imploring the ‘little bird’ to fly freely, nothing different until paired with the second verse “Fly away to live out all your hopes and dreams / Enter the real world / Of wondrous things / Through the dark clouds and over the rainbows” Using the mirroring words of ‘hopes and dreams’ and ‘dark clouds and over the rainbows’ creates the thoughts of highs and loves and everything in between, a common happening in the ‘real world’, which is usually used in regards of a child growing up and becoming up and creating a life for themselves. This is defined even more in the next three lines; “Fly away to destinations unknown / Fly away to discover yourself / And embrace what you find” these lines emphasise the thought of growing up and moving on in life, but the use of ‘embrace’ encourages the ‘little bird’ to not be afraid of change or transforming themselves, instead to welcome the difference and

In the second stanza, Dunbar refers to the emotional and physical abuse that imprisonment and oppression puts on both the caged bird and the African Americans. Dunbar begins the second stanza with,

The caged bird in both of these poems are used as metaphors for the oppression against black people with the blacks being the bird and their oppression being the cage. The bird in Sympathy attempts the break down his bars but continued to fail.

“Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou and “You Will Never See Me Fall” by Joyce Alcantara are similar poems because they both use hyperboles to convey their strength in the face of adversity. In Angelou’s poem she states“Out of the huts of history's shame. I rise Up! from a past that's rooted in pain. I rise!” During Alcantara’s piece she says “Times get hard,

This poem is also about racism and the consequence it has on your inner self. The first half of this poem explains that the speaker knows how caged birds feel, and then he goes on to describe how terrible life is. On a deeper level, the poem is about the lack of freedom. When Paul Dunbar speaks about “caged birds,” he is not talking about real birds. He uses caged birds as a metaphor for his own shortage of freedom, basically his own persecution.

The poem “Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou tells the story of two birds: one bird has the luxury of freedom and the second bird lives its life caged and maltreated by an unknown tyrant. Maya Angelou wrote this poem during the Civil Rights Era, the period when black activists in the 1950’s and 1960’s fought for desegregation of African Americans. This poem parallels the oppression that African Americans were fighting during this time period. In “Caged Bird”, Angelou builds a strong contrast that shows the historical context of discrimination and segregation through the use of mood, symbolism, and theme.

These lines show the pain and rage that people, mainly African Americans, went through in the time period this poem was written in. This poem was written from 1872-1906, this was the time period of the after effects of slavery. African Americans went through a tragic time that made them feel like they were not wanted. This feeling goes through many generations that are also expressed in “The Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou. This poem was written from 1928-2014, the time of the civil right movement.

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” depicts two birds which are used as metaphors to express the state in which the two classes of people live. In one description the poem describes the standard of living of a bird of privilege which alludes to the lives of whites. Then it describes caged birds whom of which are crying out for freedom, and are meant to represent African Americans during this time. It describes the feeling of being trapped and calling out for

After reading the first two stanzas of the poem Caged Bird by Maya Angelou, in which the free bird is compared to the caged bird, it immediately evoked thoughts of the struggle of African Americans compared to the lifestyle of white Americans. I think Angelou uses metaphors and juxtaposition pointedly in her poem to convey the idea that the freedom of the free bird is a natural state of living and the knowledge the caged bird has of that life can not be undone by any amount of oppression, entrapment or limitation of opportunity. A line that is repeated twice in the poem is, “The caged bird sings a fearful trill, of things unknown but longed for still”. The caged bird continues to sing of freedom in spite of his imprisonment because he knows of freedom and desires to feel what it is like to be the free bird. Angelou shows that in her opinion that desire will always be expressed despite scary circumstances that might quell the spirit such as being trapped in the cage.

Both poems explore the underlying theme of racism, using the symbol of a caged bird to demonstrate the suffering of an African-American during the era of slavery. The injustices

The title symbolizes the seized rights of African Americans, especially woman. It is also an allegory of African Americans. Although Maya Angelo doesn't mention any races, she expresses the limited freedom, rights and opportunities by the caged bird. In the first stanza, the poet illustrates how the free bird, which symbolizes the white people, is untroubled. ‘fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn’ is a metaphor represents opportunities and hopes that were only given to the whites. It also shows how the white people have the impudence to own and govern society unfairly. For example, in the end of the first stanza, the poet says ‘dares to claim the sky’. This shows how whites demonstrated intolerance and prejudice toward African Americans. I believe the poet is trying to convey a message, which is the fact that racism was once condoned in the

The connection between caged bird and the African American community stems from the bird representing African Americans, and the cage representing the repression felt by the African Americans due to racism. In the beginning of the poem, the author uses the phrase, “I know what the caged bird feels” (line 1), this can symbolize the author sympathy towards the bird, given as he know what it feels like to be degraded. Similarly the author ends the poem with the same phrase but different wording,“I know why the caged bird sings” (line 15), which symbolizes both the caged bird and the author’s hope for a better life. Now in general, one can say that the overall message the author is trying to portray is for white people to sympathize with the African American community, just as the author seems to relate with the caged

“But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see through his bars of rage his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.” So he is sitting in his cage, enraged. The free bird just doesn’t feel as much pain as the other caged bird, suffering from being locked up and murdered and treated wrong. It’s being compared to the african americans in “The Long Walk Home”.

In the poems, "Caged Bird" and "Hope is the thing with feathers", Maya Angelou and Emily Dickinson develop their themes through the characterization of non-literal characters. In the poem "Caged Bird", Maya Angelou illustrates the idea of hope as always being by one's side during the best and worst of times in life. It characterizes hope as caring and giving while not asking anything in return. In the poem "Hope is the thing with feathers" Emily Dickinson portrays the idea of freedom and imprisonment through the use of characterization and an extended metaphor. While one bird is able to roam free and have a good life, the other is forced to be confined in a cage where the only thing that cannot be caged is its singing.

This poem contains another literary device called juxtaposition. The free bird is juxtaposed with the caged bird, both are described but they are very different. Adults need to think about how they use their power over children. Helicopter parenting; is using power that causes children to be restricted and to shrivel up inside rather than flourish just like the caged and free bird in the poem. Angelou’s free bird is a free child, someone who has the freedom to pursue their ambitions no matter how questionably they become.