ipl-logo

What Is The Tone Of I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

720 Words3 Pages

“I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” was one of the most successful poems written by Maya Angelou. She was also wrote an autobiography with the same title, “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.” Obviously, this title had a great significance to Angelou. At that time, being a black poet was not easy for her. Even though there were equal rights for Black Americans, there were still many restrictions on them in the society, so that they did not feel free at all. In this poem, Angelou talked about the racial segregation between White Americans and Black Americans. She used the “free bird” and the “caged bird” as a metaphor to express her own emotions about the freedom and isolation. The poem reveals her deep feelings of racism and discrimination. “I …show more content…

Her description of the way the bird “dip his wing” helps the readers to acknowledge the “free bird” in his habitat and to feel his enjoyment of freedom. The second stanza was in a stark contrast with the first one. By using the word “but” to begin this stanza, she contrast the “free bird” to a “caged bird”. The tone and the mood are drastically changed from peaceful and satisfaction to dark and even frustrating. While the “free bird” was enjoying freedom, the “caged bird” was helpless in the cage. There are two words that rhyme with each other: cage and rage. Additionally, the lines, “his wings are clipped and his feet are tied. So he opens his throat to sing” will be repeated in the fifth stanza. The repetition emphasizes and reveals the poet’s feeling of restrictions and her will of seeking for freedom. The third stanza has the most ending rhymes, which are trill, still, and hill. It was also described how the caged bird sang and how early it longed for freedom. In the fourth stanza, Angelou reverts to the “free bird”. Here, she used more rhymes, such as “breeze”, “trees”, “dawn-bright”, and “lawn”. There was also

Show More
Related
202 Words | 1 Pages

Letter one is written on December 11th by Robert Walton to his sister. He writes to explain that he has arrived in Russia. He is on an expedition to find a pathway from the Arctic Ocean to the North Pacific Ocean. Involved in this expedition are harsh climates and many other dangers, which he informs his sister that he is aware of. Walton feels great joy when he thinks of the voyage he is embarking upon, despite the fact that his uncle has forbidden him to do so.

Read More
1082 Words | 5 Pages

Paul Laurence Dunbar is known as one of America’s early and most well-known African American writers. He not only has many published poems, but also short stories, essays, and novels as well. He began writing early in his life, and in 1889 was editor of the Dayton Tattler, a newspaper published by the famed Orville Wright who, with his brother, invented the airplane. Though the newspaper was short lived, for Dunbar to be in such a position as a young African American during this time was a clear sign of his intelligence and talent.

Read More
1292 Words | 6 Pages

Maya Angelou was born on April 4, 1928 and passed away on May 28, 2014. Throughout her lifetime, Angelou faced obstacles as an African American woman. Her first obstacle occurred when Angelou was eight year old and was raped by her mother’s boyfriend Freeman. After this experience with her mother’s boyfriend, she later on told her brother who then told the family. Freeman faced 1 day in jail for his punishment.

Read More
740 Words | 3 Pages

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.

Read More
1497 Words | 6 Pages

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.

Read More
802 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More
806 Words | 4 Pages

”(11-13) This pressure won her, and countless other integrationists, their inherent rights to equality and, eventually, acceptance. Another instance that showcases the impact of freeing the oppressed can be found in the metaphors of the free and caged birds as described by Maya Angelou. Her portrayal of the caged bird against that of the free bird shows a stark contrast that can be eliminated once he is freed. She describes his present state, writing, “The free bird leaps/ on the back of the wind/ and floats downstream/ till the current ends/and dips his wings/ in the orange sun rays/ and dares to claim the sky.// But a bird that stalks/ down his narrow cage/ can seldom see through/ his

Read More
1176 Words | 5 Pages

Maya Angelou is a well-known author whose writings are used in ELA classrooms around the United States. Many fans of literature hold her writings in high regard. The article “I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read” by Francine Prose is about Prose’s belief that American educators should not teach Angelou’s work to American students. Prose published the piece in 1999 in response to Angelou’s rising success and her writings being used to teach ELA. Prose believed that Maya Angelou’s work being used to teach literature was not necessary, as To Kill a Mockingbird was more than sufficient.

Read More
1630 Words | 7 Pages

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.”

Read More
476 Words | 2 Pages

Once again, Maya Angelou manages to touch our hearts again with her poetic skills in Chapter 19 titled The Champion of the World in her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She recalls a time in her life where the African American community gathered at her grandmother's and uncle's store to hear a boxing match via radio. The boxing match was between the former champion Joe Louis and a white boxer. Maya Angelou takes the meaning of a simple boxing match into something more complex; she demonstrates the suffrage of her people fighting against oppression during that time period.

Read More
809 Words | 4 Pages

The narrator is aghast when he realizes that the bird can speak. The narrator, both confused and amazed, starts showering the ebony bird with questions. His confusion only grows stronger when he realizes that the bird has only one reply for, Nevermore that he keeps on repeating. The poems major themes are death and sorrow and the nature of the

Read More
409 Words | 2 Pages

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.

Read More
914 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More
700 Words | 3 Pages

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.

Read More
1215 Words | 5 Pages

The soft alliteration portrays how peaceful freedom is, “the wind stirs soft through the springing grass.” To be freed from the cage and being able to experience the world, the feeling of liberation, that's what freedom feels like. The bird started with freedom but ended up being caged. Freedom did not last long for the bird. In the first and last line of the stanza its creates a cage by repeating, “I know what the caged bird feels.”

Read More

More about What Is The Tone Of I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

Related Topics

Open Document