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Theme Of Dedication In Caged Bird

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The Exploration of Dedication in “Sympathy” and “Caged Bird” Martin Luther King, a notable revolutionary, once said Similarly, both poems "Sympathy" and "Caged Bird" examine related themes about dedication through the captured bird’s continuous persistence and use of his helpless song despite previous efforts. Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “Sympathy” focuses on an enclosed bird’s constant fighting against numerous physical limitations from deserved opportunities, emphasizing his hopeless shouting for liberty. In contrast, Maya Angelou’s “Caged Bird” explicitly discusses a trapped bird’s attempts to overcome various boundaries using his underestimated song and continuous perseverance. While both poems “Sympathy” and “Caged Bird” share a comparable theme about African American 's battle for deserved advantages by …show more content…

On one side, “Sympathy” consists of a predictable rhyming pattern and a controlled syllable count, providing an intentionally limited form.
In this quote, readers can observe the stanza’s restricted rhyming pattern and 7-10 range of syllables, explaining the enclosed bird’s restrained decisions and lack of individuality. Additionally, while the poem’s square-shaped structure creates the effect of a cage, readers can observe several lines advancing to the right, demonstrating the enclosed bird’s slight opportunity at fighting back against his boundaries. Furthermore, the poem’s time period in 1899 explains its regulated structure and indirect representation of African American’s hopeless opportunity for liberty. On the contrary, “Caged Bird” contains an erratic rhyming pattern and an unlimited syllable count, emphasizing a purposefully irregular

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One of this week’s readings focused on Ch. 5, “Caged Birds,” in Professor Lytle Hernandez’s book City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771-1965, and this chapter was particularly interesting because it further explained the development of immigration control in the United States. As a continuation from the last chapter, there was a huge emphasis in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Geary Act of 1892. This essentially prohibited Chinese laborers from immigrating to the United States, as well as eventually requiring these people to comply with regulations. “Caged Birds” encapsulates the events afterwards, as the book heads well into the early-1900’s. The disenfranchisement of immigrants develops towards further exclusivity because “[by] 1917, Congress had banned all Asian immigration to the Unites States and also categorically prohibited all prostitutes, convicts, anarchists, epileptics, ‘lunatics,’ ‘

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Part I: Scansion and Analysis This analysis is going to be over Robert Frost’s poem “Range Finding” divided into two stanzas symbolizing the effects of war through the comparison of nature. The rhyme scheme is (abbaabba ccdeed) ultimately giving the poem a smooth and calming flow. This rhyme scheme indicates that the poem is a Petrarchan sonnet also known as an Italian sonnet. Although the poem does have a rhyme scheme, it doesn’t have any type of meter to the way it read.

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Catherine owns a number of caged birds in her chamber. The birds symbolise freedom and the cages she keeps them in symbolises lack of freedom. “I told all this to the cages of birds in my chamber and they listened quite politely. I began to keep birds in order to hear them chirping, but most often now they have to listen to mine”. Symbolism helps show how her perspective changes as she matures.

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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.

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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.

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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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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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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.

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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.

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Have you ever been a place where you can not leave? You would do everything you possibly can to escape and be freed. The poem “Sympathy” is a poem about a bird who is a poem about who is trapped in a cage. As you read the poem, you begin to understand that there is a deeper meaning to the poem. When the poem was wrote in the 1800s, many African- Americans were in slavery, and the poet wanted others to know how many of them felt.

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You cannot appreciate the good if you do not experience the bad. However in the poem “Sympathy”, by Dunbar, you can visualize the darker side of hope seeing as he gives more insight in the hurting side of hope. Both the poems use the metaphor of a bird to visualize the overall meaning of the poem. Dunbar uses his bird as a metaphor for the lack of freedom and

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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.

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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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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.

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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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