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Comparing Laurence Dunbar And Maya Angelou's Poems

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Caged Bird Slavery left several African Americans traumatized. It showed how people were before and after. Paul Laurence Dunbar and Maya Angelou’s poems both express the way people who are oppressed by inequality, discrimination, and unjust laws through the central idea of the caged bird. Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem “Sympathy” evokes powerful emotions through the symbol of the caged bird. Dunbar states, “I know why the caged bird beats his wings/...Till its blood is red on the cruel bars” (II 1&2). The bird symbolizes how African Americans who are frustrated. The blood represents the passion of the cruel bars, which represent unjust laws. And, “A pain still throbs in the old,old scars” (Il 5). The old old scars
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875 Words | 4 Pages

The bird also symbolizes how people go too far with the amount of power they have. The bird has clipped wings, is trapped in a cage, and its feet are tied up, which means that the bird has no escape. The bird has no freedom and has no way to escape, because it cannot walk or run. Since the bird is being abused and has no power, it is traumatized and explains how its life is like a nightmare. In the text, it states, “His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream/his wings are clipped and his feet are tied” (Angelou paragraph 5).

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1192 Words | 5 Pages

In The Book of Negroes Aminata was captured, and became a slave. In The Painted Bird the young boy had to be separated from his family because of the Holocaust. Aminata’s journey through slavery was only tragic at the beginning and continuously shed the tragic tone. However, The Painted Bird’s main character’s journey remained tragic. As the story goes on he faces continuous betrayal from the villagers and because he didn’t know who to trust, he developed severe loneliness.

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535 Words | 3 Pages

Angelou and Dunbar show similarities when they describe feeling trapped like caged birds, but their portrayal of the birds contrast in their actions

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266 Words | 2 Pages

The poems by Paul Laurence Dunbar and Maya Angelou are similar in many ways. A way they are similar is by how they are both talking about a caged bird and how the caged bird feels. The two poems are also explaing the caged bird singing and how he is singing with fear and not with joy or glee. The authors are also trying to show how once the caged bird had freedom, what it was like to be free and not be trapped, and also to be able to fly. The authors are trying to explain how the caged bird feels and how they know what it's like to feel that way.

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1032 Words | 5 Pages

Walton incorporates quotes from a variety of sources, sheet music, poetry and photographs of life in America in the 1930’s and 1940’s in order to illuminate the extensive outlooks on historical events. The juxtaposition of the different genres is a tool to outline the multiple aspects of American history that must be considered before one can form a new historical memory and take appropriate action from there. For instance, on page 196, Walton chooses to include a poem, Sympathy, by Paul Laurence Dunbar. Dunbar writes, “I know what the caged bird feels” (196), using the caged bird as a metaphor for himself, and for oppressed African Americans. He then describes the caged bird beating his wings and and returning to its perch in defeat, evoking sympathy as this was the way oppressed African Americans had felt--like the caged bird who was locked away with no freedom.

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1630 Words | 7 Pages

If we compare the bird’s wings to Tom Robinson’s hope, the feet to his heart, and his action of  running to the action of opening his throat to sing, we can visualize the song that Tom Robinson would sing, one about him losing hope and not wanting anyone to control his life anymore, and so in this manner he is very much like the caged bird in this poem. Similarly, Tom Robinson’s physical struggles can be compared to the caged bird in the poem “Sympathy”. In the novel it’s written “Tom

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354 Words | 2 Pages

The poem ‘Life’ Paul Laurence Dunbar uses metaphor in his poem to show the many struggles of life. “A minute to smile and an hour to weep in.” For example, this quote written by Paul Dunbar shows how the happiness in life only lasts for a moment

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1281 Words | 6 Pages

The poems in this essay both talk about being a woman. “Phenomenal Woman” by Maya Angelou is about more of a confident woman while “Woman” by Nikki Giovanni is about a woman who wants a man to change for her. The poems though very different, are also similar because they both talk about confidence as a woman. By the end of both poems the narrators both know that they are women who are strong and do not need anyone else 's acceptance but their own. They know their own self worth and that is enough for them.

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189 Words | 1 Pages

Through Imagery and Personification, the poem “Sympathy”, by Paul Laurence Dunbar, expresses the helpless rage Dunbar feels towards slavery. In the second stanza of the poem, he begins to demonstrate the mood by writing, “the caged bird beats his wing; Till the blood is red on the cruel bars,”. This Imagery describes the the helpless rage both he and the bird feel as they look out from behind the bar that confine them the opportunities described in the first stanza: The faint perfume from the flowers, the river like glass and the bright sunlight slopes. The Bird “Beats his wing” fiercely on the cruel bars trying to escape, but to no avail. Finally, in the last stanza after many hopeless tries, Dunbar describes the bird's song, “It is not a

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883 Words | 4 Pages

Being treated equally, and having equal rights as others, was a constant struggle during the 18 and 1900’s for people of color. There was no valid reason as of why they were being oppressed, resulting in riots, battling for justice. In “Caged Bird,” a poem by Maya Angelou, she creates a scene in which one bird is free, soaring wherever the bird wishes, happily. While another bird is caged, miserable, with clipped wing, tied up. In addition, written in “Sympathy,” by Paul Laurence Dunbar another highly profound poem, there is a single bird, that also is trapped, crying out for help due to it feeling depressed, and constantly beating itself up.

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514 Words | 3 Pages

During the 1900s, there were many famous authors who wrote about African Americans and Civil Rights. This was what was going on during this time period. Segregation and discrimination towards blacks was increasing. Two famous authors were Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou. Langston Hughes wrote the poem “I, Too, Sing America.”

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914 Words | 4 Pages

Hope, Rage, and Sacrifice Oppression is an illness that has plagued the world for centuries. This is shown in “Sympathy” by Paul Laurence Dunbar and “Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou as the birds are trapped by oppression and the birds must break free from it. Maya Angelou and Paul Laurence Dunbar use the central symbols of the free bird and the caged bird to reveal the theme of oppression. The symbols of rage and hope accompany the theme oppression.

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443 Words | 2 Pages

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.

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700 Words | 3 Pages

“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.

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1215 Words | 5 Pages

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.

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