Caged Bird
- Created by: Mackie1100
- Created on: 22-12-20 12:04
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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?
- Extended metaphor
- 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
- Even though the bird is born into captivity, it still has hope
- 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'
- 'sighing trees'
- '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
- To the person being oppressed, it feels like nothing belongs to you
- 'Of things unknown but longed for still'
- 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
- Title
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