Free Essays,College Free Essays,Free College Essays at Anti Essays

Explore the ways in which Maya Angelou uses language and other poetic devices to present her ideas in “Caged Bird”

“Caged Bird” explores freedom and lack of freedom, as do the poems “Monologue” and “Song to the Men of England” from the Songs of Ourselves collection. The idea of Imprisonment and restriction is explored in “Caged bird” and “Monologue”. In “Monologue” the “door” motif is repeated, which emphasizes the feeling of yearning to escape, a yearning also expressed in “Caged Bird”. Both “Caged Bird” and “Song to the Men of England” depict social injustice, Shelley considers social divisions between the rich and the poor. In “Caged Bird” there is a contrast between freedom and Imprisonment, the “free bird” and the “caged bird”, this symbolism can be applied to many forms of social injustices. The free bird has desire, wants more and can search for more, whereas the caged bird has dreams and all it can do is imagine and sing. The tone of the poem shifts between the caged bird and the free bird stanzas, you can sense anger and bitterness in her picture of the caged bird, also the way she present this contrast, between free and caged bird is for us to realize, how bad the situation of some people is. Maya Angelou really tries to convey the message that you have to look beyond yourself, and look at the world situation. Maya Angelou was born in 1928 and experienced the inequalities and injustices of the time when the poem was written, which greatly influenced the poem which explores the situation of black people in America. Angelou doesn’t use colour symbolism so we can just take this assumption from what we know about the author.

The formation of this poem is significant. This Poem is split into two parts, the caged bird and the free bird, the caged bird dominates the poem, there are four stanza’s for the caged bird and two stanzas for the free bird. This is because Maya Angelou wants us to focus on the caged bird. The free bird...