Freedom has been an essence to the American people for many decades. Indeed, because of freedom, America was viewed as an ideal “Land of the free” by the foreign immigrants, who experienced harsh voyages through sea to reach America. Furthermore, following the call for freedom, the colonists rose in defiance to Great Britain in the War of Independence. In the United States, the image of liberty, of self-independence is reflected by many artworks and literary works. Notably, among these artworks, “Caged by Maya Angelou and Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar are the typical examples which most obviously express the hope of self-independence. Although “Caged Bird” and “Sympathy” use the similar literary device—caged bird—to convey the same message, which is the desire for valueless freedom, the two poems’ tones are somewhat different from one another’s.
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Dunbar, who lived in the period decades after the Civil War, was among the African American pioneers whose immense influences in literature. Furthermore, according to his friend James Weldon Johnson, Dunbar was one of the first Black who had a profound sympathy for his own race, and his poem Sympathy proved that. Indeed, this poem was the voice, instead of verbal speech, from his heart to lament the misery of the Black people, therefore implying the accusation of the injustice which the White people had brought him and the people he endured. Similarly, Maya Angelou, who was an active activist during the Civil Rights period in the 1960s, used poems to express this sort of injustice, wherein liberty is seized. The situation which were tacitly described in both poems—through “its blood is red on the cruel bars,”(9) and “down his narrow cage”(9)—will certainly bring the readers a feeling of resentment and sadness. If one imagines that he is suddenly driven out of normal,
Dunbar, who lived in the period decades after the Civil War, was among the African American pioneers whose immense influences in literature. Furthermore, according to his friend James Weldon Johnson, Dunbar was one of the first Black who had a profound sympathy for his own race, and his poem Sympathy proved that. Indeed, this poem was the voice, instead of verbal speech, from his heart to lament the misery of the Black people, therefore implying the accusation of the injustice which the White people had brought him and the people he endured. Similarly, Maya Angelou, who was an active activist during the Civil Rights period in the 1960s, used poems to express this sort of injustice, wherein liberty is seized. The situation which were tacitly described in both poems—through “its blood is red on the cruel bars,”(9) and “down his narrow cage”(9)—will certainly bring the readers a feeling of resentment and sadness. If one imagines that he is suddenly driven out of normal,