Maya Angelou’s excerpt from “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” will imaginatively take a reader away from their deskbound position to envisioning the stage of a play ornamented with fashioned rabbits, buttercups, and daisies, hearing children as they actively perfect their performance, and stimulate the readers’ appetite with the expressive words she uses to describe sweet whiffs of cinnamon and chocolate from the food samples being prepared. From Angelou’s portrayal of the play an individual will be capable of picturing white rabbits crafted from construction paper and cotton balls modelling puffy tails, together with, yellow and pink card board cut outs resembling buttercups and daisies decking a stage. The person who reads this excerpt
The Metaphor Literary Paragraph In Budge Wilson’s “The Metaphor” the once young, enthusiastic 13 year old girl Charlotte is followed through her journey to becoming a 16 year old high school student who has been oppressed by society to match their standards. To begin with, in grade 7, Charlotte has an English teacher by the name of Miss Hancock, who is “plump and unmarried and overenthusiastic” (65). A vital role in Charlotte’s life is played by Miss Hancock because she introduces her to the beauty of literature and the importance of creativity. A breath of fresh air is what Miss Hancock is compared to in Charlotte’s plain, simple and boring life when she helps Charlotte discover her passion.
Literary devices are used throughout literature to help readers have a better understanding. Metaphors, for example, help readers to have a better visual to different aspects. In Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron,” metaphors are evident throughout the short story. The metaphors that are used throughout the short story help readers to have a better understanding of the message in “Harrison Bergeron.”
III. a. Maya Angelou was an avid writer, speaker, activist and teacher. As a result of the many hardships that she suffered while growing up as a poor black woman in the south she has used her own experiences as the subject matter of her written work. In doing this she effectively shows how she was able to overcome her personal obstacles. Her autobiography “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970) tells the story of her life and how she overcame and moved forward triumphantly in spite of her circumstances.
Great literature can open discussion about values and morals. Reading such texts can spark discussion of issues like racism, bigotry, and sexism. Reading can teach individuals about topics they have never experienced before. However, in Francine Prose’s essay, I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read, she argues that using literature to teach outside values is wrong because it takes away from the art of the text. Though I believe that books contain important topics that can spark discussions of values in classrooms, I agree with Prose that teachers shouldn’t use books as a way to explicitly teach students outside values.
Maya Angelou recalls the first seventeen years of her life, discussing her unsettling childhood in her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Maya and Bailey were sent from California to the segregated South to live with their grandmother, Momma. At the age of eight, Maya went to stay with her mother in St. Louis, where she was sexually abused and raped by her mother’s boyfriend, Mr. Freeman. Maya confronts these traumatic events of her childhood and explores the evolution of her own strong identity. Her individual and cultural feelings of displacement, caused by these incidents of sexual abuse, are mediated through her love for literature.
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.”
She shows us that despite the injustices that may occur, there will always be victory for those who truly deserve it. Maya Angelou's perspective as a young African American girl is described in Chapter 19 of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, titled Champion of the World. Her community is gathered to support Joe Louis, the former champion, in a boxing match that determines if he'll continue being champion or not. As the story progresses in her grandmother's and uncle’s store, the tone transforms from hopeful to defeated, to triumphant.
People throughout their lives are constantly discovering who they are and who they want to grow into. The same statement accurately describes Maya Johnson, a strong woman who wrote about her life in her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. As a little girl, her mother’s ex-boyfriend raped and she had to rediscover herself whilst navigating through the grim veil of trauma - a process that burdened her for many years. Throughout her life, she encountered many different people, some good, others bad, but they each helped her eventually discover her identity. ‘Identity’ is how people define themselves as a human being, and, therefore, nobody else can dictate it.
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.
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.
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.
In the two poems Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar and Caged Bird by Maya Angelou, gave a comparison between the life of a caged bird and the life of a slave. There are similarities and differences in the two poems. The difference between the two poem is that Sympathy is more aggressive than the poem Caged Bird, and the similarities of the two poems is the theme and imagery. The poem Sympathy the poem
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.
