Paul Laurence Dunbar Sympathy Poem
Mona Mosleh
English 101
Professor Borg Analysis of Sympathy In Sympathy, Paul Laurence Dunbar portrays the caged bird and elaborates upon its presence to develop a deeper meaning.
As the author looks at the caged bird, and he feels its pain. It's stuck in a cage, it can't fly around as birds are meant to do, and it's suffering since it spends countless time thrashing about against the bars that enclose it within its cage. The fact that the speaker says he "knows what the caged bird feels" suggests that he himself experiences the pain that the bird feels. After all, the bird is suffering because it isn't free. This can allude to the African-American lifestyle back during Jim Crow’s time since the cage bird resembles a black individual and how they felt “caged” and oppressed during slavery times.
"Sympathy" is a lyric poem, since it gives us a glimpse into the speaker's thoughts and emotions. Even though a lot of this poem describes what the caged bird feels, we can understand it as a lyric because the speaker identifies so closely with the caged bird's pain. After all, the poem begins with the words "I know what the caged bird feels." So the speaker gives us an insight into the bird's feelings and pain in order to give us insight into his …show more content…
In the second stanza, the words "I know why the caged bird beats his wing" are repeated , at the end of the stanza: "I know why he beats his wing!" Here, again, we can see the speaker emphasizing his identification with the caged bird through repetition. These lines are also a variation on the repeated lines in the first stanza: "I know what the caged bird feels." So the speaker uses repetition with variation in order to hammer home to us the idea that he's stuck. He doesn't have freedom. In the final stanza, we get some more repetition, with the words "I know why the caged bird sings." Here, again, the speaker uses repetition to emphasize his identification with the caged
English 101
Professor Borg Analysis of Sympathy In Sympathy, Paul Laurence Dunbar portrays the caged bird and elaborates upon its presence to develop a deeper meaning.
As the author looks at the caged bird, and he feels its pain. It's stuck in a cage, it can't fly around as birds are meant to do, and it's suffering since it spends countless time thrashing about against the bars that enclose it within its cage. The fact that the speaker says he "knows what the caged bird feels" suggests that he himself experiences the pain that the bird feels. After all, the bird is suffering because it isn't free. This can allude to the African-American lifestyle back during Jim Crow’s time since the cage bird resembles a black individual and how they felt “caged” and oppressed during slavery times.
"Sympathy" is a lyric poem, since it gives us a glimpse into the speaker's thoughts and emotions. Even though a lot of this poem describes what the caged bird feels, we can understand it as a lyric because the speaker identifies so closely with the caged bird's pain. After all, the poem begins with the words "I know what the caged bird feels." So the speaker gives us an insight into the bird's feelings and pain in order to give us insight into his …show more content…
In the second stanza, the words "I know why the caged bird beats his wing" are repeated , at the end of the stanza: "I know why he beats his wing!" Here, again, we can see the speaker emphasizing his identification with the caged bird through repetition. These lines are also a variation on the repeated lines in the first stanza: "I know what the caged bird feels." So the speaker uses repetition with variation in order to hammer home to us the idea that he's stuck. He doesn't have freedom. In the final stanza, we get some more repetition, with the words "I know why the caged bird sings." Here, again, the speaker uses repetition to emphasize his identification with the caged