Name: Mariam Abugoukh
Ms. Bestawrose
English 9H; Block: 1
Date: 2/7/2023
The caged bird as seen in “Sympathy” by Paul Dunbar
Paul Dunbar uses imagery, symbolism, and metaphor to establish a theme in his
realistic fiction poem, “Sympathy,” claiming that freedom is needed to reach one’s full
potential.
To begin, imagery is used in “Sympathy” to illustrate how freedom is necessary for
reaching one’s potential. Dunbar states in his poem that the bird beats its wings until “its
blood is red on the cruel bars” (Dunbar 9). He describes how the bird has tried to escape so
many times that its blood stains the bars of the cage. The reader can infer that due to the
bird’s injury, it has tried many times to escape, and it wasted time and effort from doing the
very thing birds are meant to do, to fly. The author uses imagery to show what the cage did
to the bird, and how it took away its freedom.
Furthermore, in the poem “Sympathy”, symbolism is used by Paul Dunbar to show
how the cage prevented the bird from reaching freedom and is preventing it from reaching
its full potential. It was stated that the bird has tried to escape so many times that “his
wing[s] [are] bruised and his bosom sore”(Dunbar 16) and “When he beats his bars and he
would be free” (Dunbar 17). The cage symbolizes the bird's lack of freedom, and how it tries
again and again resulting in it bruising its wings. The bird was robbed of the thing it was
meant to do, preventing it from reaching its full potential. symbolism was used by the
author to show how the bird could not do the thing it was meant to do.
Moreover, metaphor is used by the author in “Sympathy” to emphasize how the bird
was prevented from reaching true freedom and reaching its full potential. The author
states that the free bird steals from the chalice, “ faint perfume from its chalice steals”
(Dunbar 6). Because the bird is “free”, the reader can infer that whatever is in the chalice is
wanted by the unfree. The perfume can represent privileges that the caged bird does not
have, stopping it from having the same opportunities that the free have. The author uses
metaphor to show how other birds have more chances than the caged bird, preventing it
from truly reaching its full potential.
In conclusion, Dunbar uses imagery, symbolism, and metaphor to illustrate how
freedom is needed to reach one’s full potential by telling a story about a caged bird. The
caged bird in “Sympathy” is robbed of its freedom, stopping it from going out into the
outside world and flying like how the other birds could do. It can be concluded that the
caged bird represents how Dunbar felt about living in the US post the abolition of slavery,
how he felt that the cage was the system previously put in place, and how it prevented him
from accomplishing and doing as much as the free.