In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, birds symbolize Edna Pontellier’s journey toward ultimate freedom. In the beginning, birds represent Edna feeling trapped and oppressed. For instance, the opening of the novel includes a parrot in a cage squawking at Leonce to ‘go away.’
The girl wakes in the middle of the night and notices the caged bird. She frees the bird out her window, knowing the distress of being kept inside. There are many themes that can be found in this short story, many of which could change someone’s life for the better. One theme
Anne Frank was an adolescent girl that document her experience during the Holocaust. Anne was a Jew and during this duration Jews were treated crudely. She went into hidding to stay unassailable. During this time her only friend was her diary "Kitty". "Kitty" was her only friend that made her feel appropriate to express her feeling and emotion about everything.
Deciding to take matters into his own hands, Tom ran for it even though he knew there were high risks of him being killed, which shows how the caged bird in the poem “Caged Bird” is much like him. In the poem “Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou, the caged bird is compared and contrasted to a free bird and by examining the circumstances of Tom Robinson’s life, I say that he is very much like the caged bird. For instance, in stanza two it’s stated “His wings are clipped and/ His feet are tied/ So he opens his throat to sing.”
Although the situation about racism in I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings is the same as the first novel, the dynamic of it all is entirely flipped. The main character, Maya, lives with her brother, Bailey, grandmother,
The book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings teaches people about situations that have happened in our society and are still happening currently. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings talks about the topics of racism, teen pregnancy, and rape. This book also talks about how these unsettling and traumatizing situations affect a person. After Maya was raped she refused to speak showing us something that can happen to people after going through something as horrible as being raped. Situations like these aren't exactly talked about as often and when they are most of the time people are always looking down on the people that it has happened to not the person who did it.
Caged Bird both share a very common theme; segregation, slavery, and imprisonment. According to the poem Sympathy, “Till its blood is red on the cruel bar… I know why he beats his wings.” And from the poem Caged Bird, “…His bars of rage…so he opens his throat to sing.” These quotes show that both birds are treated like slaves. The bird from Sympathy was shipped until the back is full of blood and the bird from Caged Bird was held in a dungeon where it will die.
The oppression is binding the bird to its cage while the bird hopes and prays that someone will hear him so that he can leave this maiming tyranny. In addition in “Caged Bird” the bird is singing with mighty voice that was conceived by the rage that the bird felt toward the oppression that was trapping it. The tune that the bird sings is described as, “The caged bird sings,/ with a fearful trill,/ of things unknown”(Angelou, 30-32). The bird is illustrating the anger that it felt, by fighting the tyranny that he is facing. The tyranny is holding him down and the rage that the bird feels from this pain is what the bird symbolizes.
In two poems “Sympathy” written by Paul Laurence Dunbar and “Caged Bird” written by Maya Angelou talk about a poor bird that is trapped in a cage and wants to be free. It longs for everything that the free bird has but it cannot achieve it. In both of the poems, there is a use of comparisons between freedom and nature. It is also interpreted from the poems that the use of a song is a form of coping for the birds. Both of the birds sing for their freedom and sing through their pain.
Imagine how it feels to be stuck in a tiny, miniscule room for almost two years, not able to make a sound or movement and if heard by someone,death or concentration camp is the destination? The Diary of Anne Frank by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett is about a small family which consists of Anne, Margot, Mr. Frank, and Mrs. Frank who were in a shock of fear, and went into hiding during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Over the course of the story other characters join the family into hiding such as Mr. and Mrs. Van Daan, and their son Peter. During the time of hiding, Anne kept a diary to write down all her thoughts, fears, and feelings and was later known to be the most important piece of literature from the times of the Holocaust. The story takes you through their everyday lives of hiding in the annex which also includes arguing and times of happiness.
The singing caged bird in the article refers to her having no other means to change her situation other than "singing," that is using literary works such as poetry and novels. 2. During the interview with the poet, comedian Chappelle admitted
The bird is interpreted as the symbol of the African-American people, beating their metaphorical wings against their past cages of slavery, and the current cage of segregation and discrimination. Dunbar highlights this notion, declaring, “I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, / When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore, - / When he beats his bars and he would be free; / It is not a carol of joy or glee” (Dunbar, “Sympathy” 555). Dunbar addresses the fact that he is able to relate to this bird, and mentions the fact that the bird wishes it could be free; much like the African-Americans wished they could be free from discrimination at the time, while the bruises on the bird’s wings and body symbolize the mental abuse being enforced. Dunbar uses his poem to lay the groundwork for future forms of African-American literature by perpetrating the desire for freedom and equality.
“Caged Bird” written by Maya Angelou in 1968 announces to the world her frustration of racial inequality and the longing for freedom. She seeks to create sentiment in the reader toward the caged bird plight, and draw compassion for the imprisoned creature. (Davis) Angelou was born as “Marguerite Annie Johnson on April 4, 1928 in St Louis, Missouri”. “Caged Bird” was first published in the collection Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing? 1983.
760 days of darkness. 25 months of silence. 2 years of paranoia. All for one goal, to live. Anne Frank, a German Jew, went into hiding with her family, and four others.
In the poems “Sympathy” by Paul Laurence Dunbar and “Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou, both portray captive birds that sing. However in “Sympathy”, the bird pleads with god for freedom, whereas in “Caged Bird” the captive bird calls for help from a free bird. In “Sympathy” the bird knows what freedom feels like since there was a time where the bird was once free, but now is trapped. In the first stanza the use of imagery revealed how freedom felt before the bird was caged.
