Maya Angelou Caged Bird Analysis

Throughout the era of inequality, many famous historians were part of the Civil Right Movement and became active in the fight for freedom. Amongst them stood Maya Angelou who wrote and expressed her feelings of the movement through her poetry. Around this time Angelou produced one of her most memorable and captivating pieces, “Caged Bird”. Angelou’s use of symbolism, juxtaposition, and imagery substantiate her argument of the fight for freedom and the cold distinction between those who posses it and those who do not.
Angelou’s use of symbolism confirms her argument that freedom is taken for granted by those who have it, when she says “A free bird leaps...bars of rage” in lines 1-11. As the one bird soars freely through the sky, another remains trapped and captive resembling the similarities during the time period in which Angelou lived. She accomplishes this by portraying the free bird as a white man and the caged bird as the African American community. The privileged man floats along, daring to claim the freedoms of life, oblivious to anything and others around him, while the African Americans are bound by the bars of slavery, aspiring to be free and achieve the same privileges. The

Angelou depicts the contrast between the free bird and caged bird’s abilities towards the end of her poem when she says “the free bird...nightmare scream” (23-28). Here she discusses how the free bird, because of its privileges, has the ability to think of another breeze and fly as it pleases, while the caged bird is obligated to watch with no chance of escape. Angelou’s reference to slavery as the cage that binds African Americans from freedom sets a tone of urgency for them to become active in the fight for freedom. She depicts reality from another perspective in order to help break the chains that bind their unhappiness and set them