Similarities Between I Know Why The Caged Bird And Sympathy

Maya Angelou, a writer, professor, actor, director, singer, civil rights activists, and poet, released “Caged Bird” as a part of her fourth poetry book Shaker Why Don’t You Sing? in 1983. The title references both her critically acclaimed autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “Sympathy”. “Caged Bird” shares many similarities with “Sympathy” as they both contrast the beauty of nature and Earth with the cruelty of life as an encaged bird, desperate to live freely but unable to escape their rigid cell. An allegory to slavery, segregation, and the injustices Black Americans face, Angelou adds to this image, a second bird. This bird is free and flys happily and confidently, unknowing or uncaring of the plight of the caged bird. With this, the role white Americans is incorporated into the scene. “Caged Bird” is a brilliant modernization of Dunbar’s 1899 poem “Sympathy” that highlights the complexity and layered cruelty Black Americans face.

Yet between the publishing of her third poetry book in 1978 and the fourth book, the Miami Riots occured in response to the acquittal by an all white jury of four officers that had beaten Arthur McDuffie, a 33 year old Black man, to death, planted evidence, including running over his motorcycle to make it appear as if his injuries had been from a crash, and lied numerous times in their report of the incident. This would be replaced by the 1992 L.A. Riots, after the police attack on Rodney King, and the acquittal of the four officers that attacked him, 12 years after. Angelou, a witness to the 1965 Watts riots 15 years prior to the Miami Riots, will have seen the white response for what it was, instead of what it claimed to be. The plight then, of the caged bird stays the same, from 1899, to 1965, to 1978, and