Mahmoud Elfeki
ENG2D-01
Ms.Watkins
11/26/19
Caged Bird Essay
Mahmoud Elfeki
ENG2D-01
Ms.Watkins
11/26/19
The poem Caged Bird is ​about two birds, one that is trapped in a small cage with
limited mobility, only able to sing about the freedom it has never had. The free bird
flies freely as if the bird owns the skies. ​In ​Caged Bird, M
​ aya Angelou uses imagery
and ​personification​ to express freedom​ in her writing.
Maya Angelou uses imagery to paint a picture that expresses the desire of being free,
as well as how freedom looks like. The contrast between imprisonment and freedom
through the symbolism of a caged bird and a free bird, as well as between their
dreams and desires. An example of this would be ​"A free bird leaps on the back of the
wind"(Angelou). ​The wind is often used throughout poetry to symbolize freedom
wind goes where it pleases and it is not bound by any barriers. ​The wind is a
recurring motif throughout the poem and is used to symbolize the freedom of the free
bird.
Maya Angelou also uses personification to express freedom. “Dips his wing in the
orange sun”(Angelou). Maya Angelou uses personification in this quat to inform the
reader that the free bird can feel the sun shining on his wings. She uses this in her
writing to give more detail to the freedom of the bird. ​Maya Angelou points out the
idea that freedom is the most important necessity of any living thing.
This essay talks about how Maya Angelou portrayed the freedom of the bird in the
poem Caged Bird, and what are the literary devices used to do that? The two devices
that are presented in this essay are imagery and personification. When a writer
paints a picture of a scene in the reader’s head it is called imagery. When a writer
gives a human characteristic to something unhuman it is called personification.