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In Timmy Reeds short story, “Birds and Other Things We Placed in Our Hearts,” there is a significant amount of imagery and symbolism through the authors use of style, characterization, and theme. The profound use of symbolism in the authors style of writing greatly captures the use of imagery throughout the story. The beginning sentence of the story reads, “As our chests hollowed out, we filled them with birds” (Reed). This beginning sentence is simply stating that the hearts of humans have withered away, leaving them feeling empty, and to fill that emptiness they filled their cavity with birds.
In this essay, the movie The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock and short story called “The Birds” by Daphne du Maurier will be compared using their similarities and differences. In the story, a man and his family were being tortured by big flocks with a variety of different birds. The birds come and go quite frequently attacking children and adults. The birds are annoyingly throwing themselves against window and houses. Throughout the story however, the people discover that it may be a form of suicide for the birds.
This reminded me of how I always long for that which I don’t have, whether I know what it is that I am longing for or not, and regardless of if I know whether it is actually better for me. I felt like sometimes I’m not even wishing for something else, I’m just desperate for ‘not this’. I felt hopeful when I read the statement “for the caged bird/sings of freedom,” because singing carries implications of joy and energy, indicating an optimism for the future and for perhaps achieving ‘not this’. The next line reminded me of my greed, and how even when I have what I want, I only want more: “the free bird thinks of another breeze.” The second to last stanza brought feelings of regret.
Correspondingly, in “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Maya Angelou’s short story shows symbolism through the surroundings of the protagonist. To clarify, “black-crepe-dress gloom… black-dressed usher… woolen black clothes worn,” the color and clothing of the guests show that there was a ceremony happening for a fallen loved one. The protagonist shows the color black as a symbol of death, oppression, and bleakness. Also, “it was impossible not to record their roles in the drama,” this sentence from the story is quite interesting because it shows that the protagonist was being oblivious with her words. To enumerate, this a symbolism of grief.
Angelou and Dunbar show similarities when they describe feeling trapped like caged birds, but their portrayal of the birds contrast in their actions
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.”
Have you ever been a place where you can not leave? You would do everything you possibly can to escape and be freed. The poem “Sympathy” is a poem about a bird who is a poem about who is trapped in a cage. As you read the poem, you begin to understand that there is a deeper meaning to the poem. When the poem was wrote in the 1800s, many African- Americans were in slavery, and the poet wanted others to know how many of them felt.
A Bird’s Eye View Emily Dickinson opens up her poem with the famous line, “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words,’’. Paul Laurence Dunbar ends his poem with the line “I know why the caged bird sings!”. These two lines from the poets form the theme of the two poems. The poem “Hope is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickinson, and “Sympathy” by Paul Laurence Dunbar both present a theme that suffering makes you appreciate hope much more. It seems that hope and pain are almost a dynamic duo.
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.
The poem closes with the line “only the song of a secret bird” (28). The speaker simply cannot ignore the voice of his “secret bird,” who is proved throughout the poem to be the only force that can pull him out of his dreamland and bring him back to reality, despite his desperate attempts to protect himself and his
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.
Lines one through seven define the free bird as one that “floats downstream till the current ends and dips his wing in the orange sun rays” (Angelou) this is a representation of freedom and joy. The second and third stanza lines, eight through fourteen defines the caged bird that “stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see through his bars of rage” (Angelou) where these words reference isolation and despair compared to the freedom in stanza one. These lines create a visual response of the bird’s environments. The third stanza is repeated at the end of the poem for prominence as it reflects the two birds are so different.
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.
The entire poem consists of various metaphors of racial segregation present in the society Angelou was born into. The caged bird symbolizes the oppression and suffering of people of color, whilst the free bird symbolizes the ideal society of freedom, a society lacking prejudice and discrimination. A society that, during the time in which Angelou struggled to thrive, was only available to those who were white. The caged bird 's song represents the sustaining hope of achieving this idealistic society in which all are treated with equal worth.
The birds that they name throughout the poem represent world challenges that the child will face as they are growing up. It is proven when the author says “And, as for the bird, it is always darkening when that comes out. I will putter as though I had not heard, and lift him into my arms and sing whether he hears my song or not“ (Wright 26-30). It means that it is bad when the world challenges someone but because of the parent, the child will get through it no matter if he can hear or not. This relates to the theme because instead of the parent leaving the child when they struggle he cares and will do anything for the
