Caged Bird

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  • Caged Bird
    • Title
      • Extended metaphor
        • African american experience / community
        • Any oppressed group
      • 1983
      • Part of poetry collection shaker, why don't you sing?
    • What's It About?
      • A bird is trapped in a small cage with limited movement, singing about the freedom is doesn't have
      • Opposing experiences between 2 birds
        • One bird is able to live in nature as it pleases, while a different caged bird suffers in captivity
      • Due to its profound suffering, the caged bird sings, both to cope with its circumstances and to express its own longing for freedom
    • Themes
      • Oppression / african american experience
      • Freedom vs captivity
      • Freedom as a universal and natural right
    • Ideas + Imagery
      • 'Of things unknown but longed for still'
        • Even though the bird is born into captivity, it still has hope
          • Links to endurance of human spirit during slavery
      • Final . - emphasises freedom, suffering won't end until freedom = universal
      • Positive language in S1 - graceful imagery of the free bird
      • Auditory imageries
        • 'sighing trees'
          • Even nature is sighing at humans injustice / inequal
        • 'nightmare scream'
        • 'fearful trill'
      • 'grave of dreams'
        • metaphor
      • Visual imageries
        • 'orange sun's rays
        • 'distant hills'
        • 'fat worms'
          • Free bird is privaleged
      • 'dares to claim the sky'
        • To the person being oppressed, it feels like nothing belongs to you
          • Those that are free take what they want
        • The sky belongs to everyone
    • Rhythm, Repetition + Rhyme
      • End rhyme in S3, e.g. 'trill', 'still', 'hill'
      • S3 is repeated as the last stanza
        • This shows the fight isn't over and the caged will continue to voice when things are wrong
      • Internal rhyme in S4, e.g. 'dawn', 'lawn'
      • Iambic meter
    • Language
      • Positive language in S1
      • 'bards of rage'
        • Personification - bird is rage as he's been oppressed for years / cage has rage
      • 'distant hill'
        • metaphor - are government / activists hearing
      • 'trade winds'
        • metaphor - slave trade
      • 'shadow shouts'
        • alliteration / negative language
      • juxtaposition
        • 'fat worms' - predator and prey
    • Structure
      • Free verse
      • Narrow stanzas represent being retrained
      • Expanded verses = freedom / a warning
      • Enjambment
        • S1 - freedom
        • S3 - suggests suffering is neverending

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