Sedaris constructs his feelings through narrative writing, and Angelou explores her concerns through descriptive writing with the analogy of a bird, they still are exploring the similar topic of perceived loss. The loss of freedom, demonstrated by the demand to uphold a family image, versus the caged bird, remain very similar in both pieces due to perceived entrapment, disappointment and self-nonentity. Descriptive essays leave room for misinterpretation and confusion, where as a narrative essay is straightforward and to the point.
The loss of freedom was expressed quite literally for the caged bird, but in my opinion was also expressed for the young boy. Sedaris reminisces of his childhood, and reflects on the disapproval from his father to express himself freely through something simple, such as clothing. “The way I saw it, the problem wasn’t my outfit but my context. Sure I looked out of place beside a Scandinavian buffet, but put me in the proper environment and I’d undoubtedly fit right in”(Sedaris, 2007). If a person denied something simple, like the right to dress and express themselves, and their feelings, how can he know who he really is? “When I started buying clothes from Goodwill, he really went off, and for good reason, probably. The suspenders and knickers were bad enough, but when I added a top hat he planted himself in the doorway and physically prevented me from leaving the house” (Sedaris, 2007). In Sedaris’ “This Old House” he gives us insight of what his childhood was like, and how his mother’s Scandinavian buffet was the centerpiece of all the family gatherings. In the beginning he seemed perfectly content with his life that is until he starts watching a television show based in the Depression-era. It was thi...
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...e author actually lived through it, and as you are reading his story it is much easier to picture yourself in his shoes. The other great thing about a narrative, is that it leaves much less room for misunderstanding or misinterpretation allowing you to absorb the maximum amount of information the author has to offer his reader. When given a choice between a multi directional interpretation based descriptive essay, or a clear life reflective narrative essay, I am pleased to say, with taking all of these points into consideration, that I would choose a narrative essay every time.
References
Sedaris, D. (2007, July 9). This old house: The heart is a lonely managerie. The New Yorker. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/07/09/070709fa_fact_sedaris
Angelou, M. (1983). Caged bird. Retrieved from http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178948
The short story, “The White Heron” and the poem, “A Caged Bird” are both alike and different in many ways. In the next couple of paragraphs I will explain these similarities and differences and what makes them unique to the stories.
The woman is clearly in a place where she does not belong, while the birds are toying with her as she is placed in this foreign place. Clearly the cage is meant for the birds, but the woman inside this cage is trying to fight her oppressors even while they may think she is in a place where she cannot fight back. The woman is trying to trap the birds in her own net even though she herself is trapped. The birds clearly see her as a threat as they circle and attack her yet they dare not enter the cage where she resides. Instead they try to take what little she has left, the woman is trapped in this cage without even a shirt to cover herself. Much like X who was placed in a different kind of cage by his oppressors, X uses what he has in his cage to fight back even when the odds are against him. X uses the knowledge available as his own net to try and trap his white oppressors who think they are safe by imprisoning him. While they see that X is a threat they cannot do much to him directly as he has turned their oppression into his own
In the text "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" a young black girl is growing up with racism surrounding her. It is very interesting how the author Maya Angelou was there and the way she described every detail with great passion. In the book Maya and Bailey move to a lot of places, which are, Stamps, Arkansas; St. Louis, Missouri; and San Francisco, California. Maya comes threw these places with many thing happening to her and people she knows. She tries to hold onto all the good memories and get rid of the bad but new ones just keep coming. That is why this book is very interesting. It keeps readers on the edge of their seats.
Very few literary reviews seem to consider that Angelou's intertwining use of the objective and subjective narrative is an elegant self-analysis of her rank and importance within Stamps. It is important to understanding oneself to be able to understand the culture of the local community--the community's aspirations, history, beliefs, habits, values, etc.
Personal narratives allow you to share your life with others and vicariously experience the things that happen around you. Your job as a writer is to put the reader in the midst of the action letting him or her live through an experience. Although a great deal of writing has a thesis, stories are different. A good story creates a dramatic effect, makes us laugh, gives us pleasurable fright, and/or gets us on the edge of our seats. A story has done its job if we can say, "Yes, that captures what living with my father feels like," or "Yes, that’s what being cut from the football team felt like."
Nothing in life is guaranteed, but the one thing that humans demand is freedom. Throughout history, there are countless cases where groups of people fought for their freedom. They fought their battles in strongly heated debates, protests, and at its worst, war. Under the assumption that the oppressors live in complete power, the oppressed continuously try to escape from their oppressors in order to claim what is rightfully theirs: the freedom of choice. In Emily Dickinson’s poems #280, #435, and #732 and Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, freedom is represented by an individual’s ability to make their own decisions without the guidance, consultation, or outside opinion of others in order to find their true sense of self. Once an individual is physically and spiritually free, they can find their true sense of self.
Oppression in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
There are many different ways someone is considered to be free, the direct definition is to enjoy personal rights or liberty, this can be interpreted in different forms. In their poems “Caged Bird”, and “Sympathy”, Maya Angelou and Paul Laurance Dunbar use caged birds to represent what it means to be free. They both use birds to convey a better image for the reader. Birds are used in both poems of “Caged Bird” and “Sympathy” as a central image because the caged birds are metaphors for true freedom and hope.
Maya Angelou’s excerpt from her book “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” reveals the challenges facing a young black girl in the south. The prologue of the book tells of a young Angelou in church trying to recite a poem she has forgotten. She describes the dress her grandmother has made her and imagines a day where she wakes up out of her black nightmare. Angelou was raised in a time where segregation and racism were prevalent in society. She uses repetition, diction, and themes to explore the struggle of a black girl while growing up. Angelou produces a feeling of compassion and poignancy within the reader by revealing racial stereotypes, appearance-related insecurities, and negative connotations associated with being a black girl. By doing this she forces the
Throughout history, there has been racial segregation prevalent in American culture. Barriers between African Americans and Anglos have existed for several centuries with no end in sight. During an era of oppression, the lives of African American's was made distinctive by prejudice and restricted opportunities. This was a time of recognized African American inferiority; which involuntarily forced them to endure many partialities and tyranny. African Americans were forced to be obsequious and acquiescent due to these customs that were profoundly entrenched in a discriminatory nation. The only way for African Americans to gain honer and respect was for them to stand up for their rights and let there voice be heard. Maya Angelou encouraged those of her ethnicity to do this in her poem Caged Bird.
Society has redefined the role of woman by their works thru poetry that has changed their life
The book thus explores a lot of important issues, such as: sexuality and race relations, and shows us how society violated her as a young African American female. In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelou clearly expresses the physical pain of sexual assault, the mental anguish of not daring to tell, and her guilt and shame for having been raped. Her timidity and fear of telling magnify the brutality of the rape. For more than a year after the rape she lives in self-imposed silence, speaking only very rarely. This childhood rape reveals the pain that African American women suffered as victims not only of racism but also sexism.
The novel I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings goes through the childhood of Maya Angelou as she faces the difficult realities of the early South. This novel does not do a very good job at portraying the hardships of the blacks because she
I chose these three poems because the subject matter appealed to me and I believe that the poems convey their meaning very effectively. Upon researching the poems, I discovered that Caged Bird was in fact inspired by Sympathy, which accounts for the similarities in language and imagery, as outlined below. All three poems deal with the subject of freedom using the imagery of birds; On Liberty and Slavery is narrated as a human plea for freedom, and makes reference to birds in that context, whereas Caged Bird and Sympathy both use the imagery of caged birds to explore the theme of loss of freedom. The symbolism of birds is used to depict freedom, as birds are essentially without constraints; in comparison to the limitations of humans, they have limitless possibilities. When a bird is caged, however, it loses that potential and is restricted not by its own limitations, but the limits set by another.
In the “Caged Bird” Angelou’s comparison to the caged bird was African-Americans in the society they were living in. She symbolized the bird with African-Americans experiences. In the second stanza the poem states “But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see through his bars of rage his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing”. This is comparison to African-Americans in their society. When African- Americans were enslaved they use to sing songs to uplift their spirits because that’s all they could do. They were physically bound and mentally brain-washed. The songs was there way of showing they still had fight left in them. In the fourth stanza it states “The free bird thinks of another breeze and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn and he names the sky his own”. This is saying the while African-Americans were enslaved and oppressed they watched Caucasians be free and do as they pleased. Although at the time African-Americans never experienced freedom they yearned for it. They knew it had to be better then what they were enduring. Racism is considered the cage around the caged bird, and it means not getting treated fairly with jobs, medical treatment, and even get