In Angelou's poem "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," a free bird floats downstream and "dares to claim the sky," while the caged bird has clipped wings and tied feet and paces in his cage. The caged bird sings "of things unknown/but longed for still." In other words, the caged bird dreams of what he longs for but can't achieve; as Angelou writes in the last line of the poem, "the caged bird/sings of freedom."
The political underpinnings of the poem are the inequality between different people in the United States. Racism, sexism, and other types of discrimination mean that some people can achieve a great deal of freedom over their own lives, as the free bird in the poem does, while others who are in groups that face discrimination are metaphorically caged, in that they are not able to go where they want and achieve what they dream about. The caged bird sings of freedom in the hope that his song, which can refer to the protests of oppressed groups, leads to his release.
Saturday, June 10, 2017
What are the major political underpinnings behind Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" (the poem)?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Why is the fact that the Americans are helping the Russians important?
In the late author Tom Clancy’s first novel, The Hunt for Red October, the assistance rendered to the Russians by the United States is impor...
-
There are a plethora of rules that Jonas and the other citizens must follow. Again, page numbers will vary given the edition of the book tha...
-
The poem contrasts the nighttime, imaginative world of a child with his daytime, prosaic world. In the first stanza, the child, on going to ...
-
In the late author Tom Clancy’s first novel, The Hunt for Red October, the assistance rendered to the Russians by the United States is impor...
-
Lionel Wallace is the subject of most of "The Door in the Wall" by H.G. Wells. The narrator, Redmond, tells about Wallace's li...
-
Robinson Crusoe, written by Daniel Defoe, is a novel. A novel is a genre defined as a long imaginative work of literature written in prose. ...
-
"The Wife's Story" by Ursula Le Guin presents a compelling tale that is not what it initially seems. The reader begins the sto...
-
In Celie's tenth letter to God, she describes seeing her daughter in a store with a woman. She had not seen her daughter since the night...
ah this answer is good, but I like if you use more points on explaining the political side of this poem
ReplyDelete