Sympathy Figurative Language

The United States of America was a nation built upon the notion of freedom and equal opportunity- in which all peoples have impartial opportunities and rights. However, these principles did not always have their right of way. From the first ship of enslaved African Americans to arrive in the early seventeenth century to modern times, discrimination and racial segregation has always been an issue. In both “Sympathy”-- a poem about a caged bird’s fight for freedom after being liberated from slavery-- by Paul Laurence Dunbar and A Voice That Challenged a Nation --a biography which spoke about Marian’s struggle for equal rights after she had experienced the harshness of the South --by Russell Freedman, the two parties faced the challenges of …show more content…
While “Sympathy” used figurative language, A Voice That Challenged a Nation used informational text elements that were quite literal. In “Sympathy,” Dunbar uses the caged bird as a metaphor to represent the colored population and their arduous privations. Dunbar also uses connotations for better comprehension and similes, such as “flowed like glass” to represent a river, to create an image that has an emotional impact on the reader as it begs for a sympathetic response to the plight of all those who are denied freedom. For example, in line six, it says “and the faint perfume from its chalice steals.” As one might know, perfume means “scent” which appeals to the reader’s sense of smell. Instead of using the neutral word “scent,” or the negative word “smell,” the poet employs “perfume” because of its positive connotation of a sweet aroma. However, the perfume doesn’t just “leave” the flower; it “steals,” which connotes moving secretly, or invisibly, perhaps creating an image of captive slaves making their escape to freedom. To add, Dunbar’s words take on a deeper meaning that allows him to incorporate a hidden theme that conveys the struggle of African Americans in a nation build on the foundation of freedom. In A Voice That Challenged a Nation, that author used textual text elements with few literary devices to unfold a series of events or ideas, including the order in which the points are introduced and developed. For example by using phrases such as “she had never visited the Deep South before, and on this trip, for the first time, she experienced the strict "Jim Crow" laws that enforced racial segregation throughout the South.” This helps readers to draw connections between informational text elements. By connecting these text elements, readers are able to analyze how Freedman unfolds his true story to create a biography that makes Marian