Essay About Narrow Cage And Free Bird Leaps

Caged Bird by Maya Angelou
Caged Bird by Maya Angelou
The Poem “Caged Bird”, by Maya Angelou, is about how people who keep their opinions
to themselves, and dont try to do the best for themselves will get nothing out of life but, the
people who strive for doing better and say what they think and how they feel will get the best
that life has to offer for them. It is a very descriptive poem for many people how Angelou
describes the free and caged birds. The theme of this poem is if you use your voice you will be
heard. “Caged Bird” is a very meaningful and understanding poem because of imagery,
sound devices and figurative language.
In the poem, “Caged Bird”, Maya Angelou has a lot of imagery throughout the
whole poem letting the reader have a clear picture of what is going on. One example of when
this element is shown, is “A free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the
current ends and dips his wing in the orange sun rays”. This example helps the reader see a
picture of the free bird, enjoying life and making the most of it. The descriptive words such as
dips, floats, and leaps helps the reader make sense of the stanza. Another example of imagery in
this poem is in the second stanza, “But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see
through his bars of rage his wings are clipped and his feet are tied”. This example is important
because it shows the difference of the free bird and the caged bird. Using the words such as
narrow, bars, clipped, and tied the reader can get a strong idea of the caged bird, compared to the
free bird. Also another example of imagery is when the author mentions the free bird again,
“The free bird thinks of another breeze and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees and
the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn”. This example again shows the difference of the
free bird compared to the caged bird, but it shows this by using different techniques. Before,
when the caged bird is mentioned, the reader feels the pain of the caged bird. Although, in
lines 22-25, we read about the free bird again and we feel comfortable and happy. Maya
Angelou uses words such as breeze, sighing trees, and dawn-bright so we feel joyful and may
even picture ourselves as that free bird for a second. Along with sight, sound also used
throughout the poem. An example of sound in this poem is in lines 15-20, “The caged bird
sings with a fearful trill of things unknown and longed for still and his tune is heard on the
distant hill”. From this detail, the reader can feel the pain of the bird and can imagine the way
the caged bird sings. Many words in these lines give the reader a picture of how the bird sounds
singing, such as fearful, trill, and tune is heard on a distant hill. These words give a hint to the
reader that the song that the caged bird is singing is screechy but still it can be heard. These
examples show you how the writer creates an image in your mind while you read the poem. The
reader enjoys the poem more with imagery because they get to choose what the bird sounds like
and what the author means when she says something like, “dips his wings in orange sun rays”.
Using imagery in a poem is an important technique because it helps the writer express what they
want to say, and it lets the