How Did Maya Angelou Write A Caged Bird Essay

Will Rogers once said “We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others” The poem “Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou, symbolizes history, portrays freedom, equality, self-rage, and society, which allows people to connect emotionally and mentally.
Maya Angelou illustrates in her poem, a bird who is locked away in a cage and longs to be free. The caged bird is held down by chains, his wings are clipped, and feet are tied. The only thing the bird has, is the view of another bird who is free. While the bird who is free enjoys his freedom, he notices here and there the stares of the caged bird. This only ignites an urge in the caged bird to be free, to fly, and enjoy what he has been locked away from for so long. The caged bird imagines that he is the one who has all of the

Later on, Maya became a journalist, poet, in addition to being a civil rights activist. Maya suffered from harsh racism and criticism everywhere she went. After years of Maya suffering from being different, she soon longed to be different as well. Maya had to learn how to take the words of hurt and use them to her advantage. Maya learned from her mother, who suffered from severe discrimination, to only smile. As they said in Role-Playing “is because, as a Black woman, she must maintain the role of respect toward the white children that she discovers another vehicle for her true emotions. She has used the caged creatively to transcend it.” (McMurry #108) From this we can gather that Maya’s mother was able to turn something negative into something positive. In Maya‘s poem, she used the caged bird to show the emotion that she was holding onto on the inside. Maya felt separated from everyone, and she long to be someone who could be free and accepted. Maya had many meanings in her poem, which allows more readers to connect emotionally, mentally, physically, and in other ways as