Imagine you're a bird that's in a cage all the time. You're isolated away from all other birds at all times so it's not possible to associate, you aren't able to be let out to fly around, you can't even build a nest. Paul Laurence Dunbar to me is kind of saying the bird is locked up like a person would be in a prison cell. The bird has no freedom just like African Americans. This poem means more to me than just a bird that's caged. It's more toward the fact that there a lack of freedom in this world. He knows how a caged bird feels because he feels caged himself. To me, Paul Laurence Dunbar is experiencing the lack of freedom himself. The caged bird is just a metaphor to how he really feels. Paul Laurence Dunbar was an African American poet. …show more content…
He knows how it feels to be caged and never have a say in anything. He feels being locked up from everyday life and it seems like he's locked away from the world itself. It's spring time so the birds should be outside flying and singing. However, this bird is locked away. In the third stanza Dunbar repeats "I know why the caged bird sings!" (Dunbar 1046). Again, he repeats this because he knows what it's like to be sad but happy at the same time. The singing of a bird is supposed to be a cheerful, happy thing but for Dunbar, he's crying out for help. The bird keeps trying to break free. He can't but he wants to get out so bad. He beats himself against the cage and is injuring himself just to get outside when he knows it isn't …show more content…
Blacks weren't able to have a say in life like white people so the poem is the way he's telling about his life as well. At the beginning and end of each stanza he's repeating himself because he is the caged bird. In that time he feels caged in society. Dunbar is the caged bird in the poem. The progression in Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar is the desire and goal that he can't reach. What the birds been through and the scars he has. The third stanza is the most important and filled with the most information in my opinion. Even if the bird can't get out he's not going to give up. He feels what the bird feels that's why it's called "Sympathy" in my