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 doesnt 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 stanzas 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 emphasizes for the reader how unfair life is for the caged bird, when compared to the free bird. Stanza three and six are a repeated refrain. This helps show how hard caging is on the mind and on the spirit. Also the repetition of the stanzas emphasizes the awful situation of the caged bird and on how hard it is to break out of emotional caging as well as literal. The pain of the oppressed is heard but will it be answered? Or, are the free too busy searching for themselves? The poem suggests that the free take their freedom for granted and Angelou seems to be calling got the free to start listening and contemplating the caged.
The poems delivery is important. Words representing the free bird are bright and cheerful, such as leaps which helps to get across the feeling of power and trouble-free life. Floats brings across the impression that the bird is resting on water which is moving, that his life is effortless, that someone else seems to be doing all the work. Could it be the cage bird? The caged bird is represented by gloomy and moody words, stalks is telling is that he marches stiffly and angrily in his cage, that he is angry about something. cage means that the bird is imprisonment, unable to escape. When reading the poem we get a sense of a contrast between natural freedom and man made imprisonment. The diction which Angelou applies is closely linked to the themes, freedom and imprisonment, words such as leap and float portray freedom. he names the sky his own again contributes to the fact that free bird has a world of opportunities. also she applies the opposite of freedom to express imprisonment. Such as, bars and tied express the idea of being locked up. The verb opens reminds us of this sense of freedom, which refers back to the free bird, the caged bird dreams and sings of what the free birds takes for granted. All he can open is his throat. Dreaming and singing is the caged birds only freedom.
Maya Angelou uses imagery very effectively in this poem, to develop ideas about freedom and imprisonment. anger, an abstract emotion, is made actual in the image, Bars of rage.
bars represent how the caged bird is emotionally imprisonment in his own anger, as well as literally. Angelou writes a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams. This metaphor represents the dreams of freedom, which will never be realised. grave is implying that his dreams are dead and have no future. The tone and emotional impact conveyed is bitter and despairing.
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