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I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS

-MAYA ANGELOU

PLOT
“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” is a free verse written by the American poet and civil rights
activist Maya Angelou. Maya Angelou is widely regarded as the “Black Woman’s Poet
Laureate.” Her reflections on the society and the times she lived in are vividly expressed in her
poetry.
Outwardly the poem “I know why the caged bird sings” or “Caged Bird” as it is often
interchangeably known, can be seen as a reflection on social disparity, and the ideals of freedom
and justice. Angelou, with the metaphor of birds, represents the inequality of justice seen in the
society of her time which differentiates between the African-American community and its White
American counterpart. Through her poem, she also illustrates the nature of both freedom and
captivity by creating a stark contrast between the two using birds as the metaphor.
The poem is divided into six stanzas, describing the state of two birds, where one is free and
‘floats’ and ‘dares to claim the sky’, while the other is caged in his ‘bar of rage’. The first and the
third stanza shows the delight of the free bird experiencing freedom, whereas the rest of the
stanzas concentrate on the plight of the caged bird. Angelou puts greater emphasis on the
lamentable state of the caged bird, and contrasts this with that of the free bird.

Although the poem I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings has no definitive rhyme scheme, it creates
the illusion of rhyme with the clever use of consonance. The enjambment in the poem draws the
reader’s eye to things of importance in a blunt manner.

The opening lines show a bird leaping ‘on the back of the wind’ demonstrating the freedom it
experience to move about and glide freely through the air. It hovers over a stream of wind and
floats downwards to where the current of the stream ends and the wind is calm. It dips its wing in
the sea of orange sunlight.
The bird is shown in a state of great tranquility. It has the freedom to move about wherever it
desires. It is so utterly free and without restraints that it ‘dares to claim the sky’. The whole
firmament is his one big home.

In the second stanza, poet Maya Angelou contrasts the situation by presenting the image of a
caged bird. The caged bird tries to go after his cage in vain. The cage is narrow and its
metaphorical bars are of rage. The caged bird is seen to be angry with its situation. It desires with
all its heart to escape its plight. But the caged bird cannot see beyond his cage. Its wings are
clipped, that is, its freedom is taken away. Wings are associated with flight, which in turn is
associated with freedom. The words ‘his wings are clipped’ mean that its freedom is forcibly
taken away. It cannot fly even if it desires to. Its feet are tied. A bird tied to the ground represents
an image completely opposite to its true nature of flight. This represents the fact of alienation of
the bird. But the most important thing is that despite being in this utterly despondent
predicament, the caged bird ‘opens his throat to sing.’ That seems to be his only joy and
achievement in life.
In the third stanza the poetess has described that the caged bird has a wavering voice. He is
singing of freedom, something he does not have. The idea of freedom is his dream, one he cannot
achieve. So, he sings about it. There is fear in his voice. He had never known what freedom
tastes like, but hopes to have it for his own. His voice can be heard from distant places, on hills
where it inspires others to dream of freedom. The caged bird doesn’t sing of sadness, but of
hope, inspiration and of freedom.

In the fourth stanza Maya Angelou tells us that the free bird revels his freedom. He
enjoys flying through the trade wind that blows through the trees. ‘Sighing trees’ probably refers
to the sighing sound made by the breeze while passing through the leafy branches. It gives an
indication to their lack of freedom, as the trees are also ‘tied’ to the ground like the caged bird.
The free bird thinks of the fat worm that will be his food. With the wind in his feathers, water
and earth beneath him, and the whole sky with him, he feels majestic in his freedom and calls the
entire sky his own domain. By ‘names the sky his own’ the poet’s wishes to express that the bird
knows himself to be the proprietor of this whole universe. Here the sky stands for the universe.

In the fifth stanza the caged, inversely, knows that he is not flying in the sky, that he is not free,
but a captive, a prisoner. He thus ‘stands on the grave of dreams’ He knows his dreams of flying
in a free firmament, to experience freedom is futile. He had lost all hope of freedom. His shadow
‘shouts on a nightmare scream’. It is more pitiable, more adverse than a nightmare. His wings are
clipped and feet are tied; there is only a little hope of freedom, and so the bird opens his throat to
sing. The bird wishes to travail against all adversities. There is a faint but kindling voice of hope
in his song.

This refrain recurring as a stanza justifies the bird’s stout determination to keep going after his
dream of freedom. Moreover, the caged bird chooses to sing as this is the only freedom available
to him, that he can enjoy without any restriction. His wings are clipped, feet are tied, but his
throat is not chocked yet. This is something the poet have felt at heart and that’s why she
uses the title ‘I Know Why the Cages Bird Sings’.
This might be seen as the poet’s message to raise our voice, to express ourselves even though the
stronger wants to suppress the weaker and to never ever give up, no matter what situation we are
in.

In many ways the poem ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ can be considered as the poet’s
personal expression. Maya Angelou can be regarded as the caged bird in the poem. A stanza in
the poem is repeated to catch the attention to the idea of the caged bird singing for freedom. The
poem uses a metaphor to compare caged birds to African Americans fighting for equality during
the civil rights movement.

Maya confronts the insidious effects of racism and segregation in America at a very young age.
She internalizes the idea that blond hair is beautiful and that she is a fat black girl trapped in a
nightmare. Stamps, Arkansas, is so thoroughly segregated that as a child Maya does not quite
believe that white people exist. As Maya gets older, she is confronted by more overt and personal
incidents of racism, such as a white speaker’s condescending address at her eighth-grade
graduation, her white boss’s insistence on calling her Mary, and a white dentist’s refusal to treat
her. The importance of Joe Louis’s world championship boxing match to the black community
reveals the dearth of publicly recognized African American heroes. It also demonstrates the
desperate nature of the black community’s hope for vindication through the athletic triumph of
one man. These unjust social realities confine and demean Maya and her relatives. She comes to
learn how the pressures of living in a thoroughly racist society have profoundly shaped the
character of her family members, and she strives to surmount them. Maya is shuttled around to
seven different homes between the ages of three and sixteen: from California to Stamps to St.
Louis to Stamps to Los Angeles to Oakland to San Francisco to Los Angeles to San Francisco.
As expressed in the poem she tries to recite on Easter, the statement “I didn’t come to stay”
becomes her shield against the cold reality of her rootlessness. Besieged by the “tripartite
crossfire” of racism, sexism, and power, young Maya is belittled and degraded at every turn,
making her unable to put down her shield and feel comfortable staying in one place. When she is
thirteen and moves to San Francisco with her mother, Bailey, and Daddy Clidell, she feels that
she belongs somewhere for the first time. Maya identifies with the city as a town full of
displaced people. Maya’s personal displacement echoes the larger societal forces that displaced
blacks all across the country. She realizes that thousands of other terrified black children made
the same journey as she and Bailey, traveling on their own to newly affluent parents in northern
cities, or back to southern towns when the North failed to supply the economic prosperity it had
promised. African Americans descended from slaves who were displaced from their homes and
homelands in Africa, and following the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, blacks continued to
struggle to find their place in a country still hostile to their heritage. Black peoples’ resistance to
racism takes many forms in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Momma maintains her dignity by
seeing things realistically and keeping to herself. Big Bailey buys flashy clothes and drives a
fancy car to proclaim his worth and runs around with women to assert his masculinity in the face
of dehumanizing and emasculating racism. Daddy Clidell’s friends learn to use white peoples’
prejudice against them in elaborate and lucrative cons. Vivian’s family cultivates toughness and
establishes connections to underground forces that deter any harassment. Maya first experiments
with resistance when she breaks her white employer’s heirloom china. Her bravest act of
defiance happens when she becomes the first black streetcar conductor in San Francisco. Blacks
also used the church as a venue of subversive resistance. At the revival, the preacher gives a
thinly veiled sermon criticizing whites’ charity, and the community revels in the idea of white
people burning in hell for their actions.

POLITICAL BACKGROUND
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a 1969 autobiography describing the early years of
American writer and poet Maya Angelou. The first in a seven-volume series, it is a coming-of-
age story that illustrates how strength of character and a love of literature can help
overcome racism and trauma. The book begins when three-year-old Maya and her older brother
are sent to Stamps, Arkansas, to live with their grandmother and ends when Maya becomes a
mother at the age of 16. In the course of Caged Bird, Maya transforms from a victim of racism
with an inferiority complex into a self-possessed, dignified young woman capable of responding
to prejudice.
Angelou was challenged by her friend, author James Baldwin, and her editor, Robert Loomis, to
write an autobiography that was also a piece of literature. Reviewers often categorize Caged
Bird as autobiographical fiction because Angelou uses thematic development and other
techniques common to fiction, but the prevailing critical view characterizes it as an
autobiography, a genre she attempts to critique, change, and expand. The book covers topics
common to autobiographies written by Black American women in the years following the Civil
Rights Movement: a celebration of Black motherhood; a critique of racism; the importance of
family; and the quest for independence, personal dignity, and self-definition.
Angelou uses her autobiography to explore subjects such as identity, rape, racism, and literacy.
She also writes in new ways about women's lives in a male-dominated society. Maya, the
younger version of Angelou and the book's central character, has been called "a symbolic
character for every black girl growing up in America".Angelou's description of being raped as an
eight-year-old child overwhelms the book, although it is presented briefly in the text. Another
metaphor, that of a bird struggling to escape its cage, is a central image throughout the work,
which consists of "a sequence of lessons about resisting racist oppression". Angelou's treatment
of racism provides a thematic unity to the book. Literacy and the power of words help young
Maya cope with her bewildering world; books become her refuge as she works through her
trauma.
Caged Bird was nominated for a National Book Award in 1970 and remained on The New York
Times paperback bestseller list for two years. It has been used in educational settings from high
schools to universities, and the book has been celebrated for creating new literary avenues for the
American memoir. However, the book's graphic depiction of childhood rape, racism, and
sexuality has caused it to be challenged or banned in some schools and libraries.
Before writing I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings at the age of forty, Angelou had a long and
varied career, holding jobs such as composer, singer, actor, civil rights worker, journalist, and
educator.[4] In the late 1950s, she joined the Harlem Writers Guild, where she met a number of
important African-American authors, including her friend and mentor James Baldwin. After
hearing civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speak for the first time in 1960, she was
inspired to join the Civil Rights Movement. She organized several benefits for him, and he
named her Northern Coordinator of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. She worked
for several years in Ghana, West Africa, as a journalist, actress, and educator. She was invited
back to the US by Malcolm X to work for him shortly before his assassination in 1965. In 1968,
King asked her to organize a march, but he too was assassinated on April 4, which also happened
to be her birthday. For many years, Angelou responded to King's murder by not celebrating her
birthday, instead choosing to meet with, call, or send flowers to his widow, Coretta Scott King.
Angelou was deeply depressed in the months following King's assassination, so to help lift her
spirits, Baldwin brought her to a dinner party at the home of cartoonist Jules Feiffer and his wife
Judy in late 1968. The guests began telling stories of their childhoods and Angelou's stories
impressed Judy Feiffer. The next day she called Robert Loomis at Random House, who became
Angelou's editor throughout her long writing career until he retired in 2011, and "told him that he
ought to get this woman to write a book". At first, Angelou refused, since she thought of herself
as a poet and playwright. According to Angelou, Baldwin had a "covert hand" in getting her to
write the book, and advised Loomis to use "a little reverse psychology", and reported that
Loomis tricked her into it by daring her: "It's just as well", he said, "because to write an
autobiography as literature is just about impossible". Angelou was unable to resist a challenge,
and she began writing Caged Bird. After "closeting herself" in London, it took her two years to
write it. She shared the manuscript with her friend, writer Jessica Mitford, before submitting it
for publication.
Angelou subsequently wrote six additional autobiographies, covering a variety of her young
adult experiences. They are distinct in style and narration, but unified in their themes and stretch
from Arkansas to Africa, and back to the US, from the beginnings of World War II to King's
assassination. Like Caged Bird, the events in these books are episodic and crafted as a series of
short stories, yet do not follow a strict chronology. Later books in the series include Gather
Together in My Name(1974), Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas (1976), The
Heart of a Woman (1981), All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986), A Song Flung Up to
Heaven (2002), and Mom & Me & Mom (2013, at the age of 85). Critics have often judged
Angelou's later autobiographies "in light of the first", and Caged Bird generally receives the
highest praise.
Beginning with Caged Bird, Angelou used the same "writing ritual" for many years. She would
get up at five in the morning and check into a hotel room, where the staff were instructed to
remove any pictures from the walls. She wrote on yellow legal pads while lying on the bed, with
a bottle of sherry, a deck of cards to play solitaire, Roget's Thesaurus, and the Bible, and left by
the early afternoon. She averaged 10–12 pages of material a day, which she edited down to three
or four pages in the evening. Lupton stated that this ritual indicated "a firmness of purpose and an
inflexible use of time". Angelou went through this process to give herself time to turn the events
of her life into art, and to "enchant" herself; as she said in a 1989 interview with the BBC, to
"relive the agony, the anguish, the Sturm und Drang". She placed herself back in the time she
wrote about, even during traumatic experiences like her rape in Caged Bird, to "tell the human
truth" about her life. Critic Opal Moore says about Caged Bird: "...Though easily read, [it] is no
'easy read'". Angelou stated that she played cards to reach that place of enchantment, to access
her memories more effectively. She has stated, "It may take an hour to get into it, but once I'm in
it—ha! It's so delicious!" She did not find the process cathartic; rather, she found relief in "telling
the truth"

QUESTION AND ANSWERS

Extract 1

A free bird leaps


on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
1. How does the poet describe the world of nature?

The port uses various images to describe nature. She presents the image of a free bird leaping on the back of the wind. Then she writes
of the bird floating “downstream” and dipping its wing in the orange sky.

2. What is the symbolic significance of the sun, sky and wind here?

The sun, sky and wind symbolically signify open spaces and skies or in other words freedom.

3. Describe the image of the bird as presented in this stanza?

The free bird is presented to be freely floating on the back of the wind and enjoying everything. He feels as if he were the owner of the
whole sky.

4. What is the free bird metaphor for here?

In Maya Angelou’s poem “Caged Bird” she provides a juxtaposition a free bird’s life with that of a caged bird. The free bird
symbolizes people who live in this world unencumbered by prejudice of any type whether it be racial, socioeconomic or
psychological.

5. How does the caged bird behave and why?

Encaged bird is despondent in his life of captivity and cries out frighteningly for freedom.

Extract 2

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.

1. What does the free bird ‘claim’ and why?


The free bird claims for freedom as he flies against the orange sky because it thinks of
another plight and is free to find its own food.
2. How does the encaged bird behave?
The encaged bird enjoys the freedom as he flies against the orange sky. It thinks of another
flight and is free to find its own food.
3. Is his state of captivity natural? Why/Why not?
Yes, his state of captivity is natural as it sings about freedom and equality and is different
from the free bird who has no restrictions on his movement.
4. What do the ‘bars of rage’ stand for?
Bars of rage stand for restrictions on the encaged bird. Discrimination and racism are
formed.
5. What does the encaged bird sing about?
The encaged bird sings about freedom and equality.

Extract 3

The caged bird sings


with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

1. How does the poet reveal the plight of the encaged bird?
The encaged bird is afraid of many unknown things. His conditions is miserable. His wings
are clipped and his feet is tied. He can hardly move in his cage and move through the bars
of rage. He is angry but helps. Though he is afraid he gives expression to his dream of
freedom.
2. What is the encaged bird fearful of?
The encaged bird fears for many unknown things but keenly desired. He sings with a fearful
trill because he feels insecure about future. He sings for freedom.
3. ‘His tune is heard on the distant hill’. Explain.
His tune is heard on the distant hill mean that his voice is heard far and wide as he sings for
freedom and is now heard in distant countries.
4. What do you mean by ‘a fearful trill of things unknown’?
The cages bird sings in a quivering voice when he sees unknown things is meant by a
fearful trill of things unknown.
5. What idea do you get about the African American’s from the stanza?
In Angelou’s time African American people did not feel free as they were still many
restrictions on them in the society based on race, gender, slavery and freedom.

Extract 4

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

1. Which bars of rage put restrictions on the movements of the encaged bird?
Racism, sexism, and powerlessness of their victims and also gender inequality were the
bars of rage that put restrictions on the movement of the encaged bird.
2. What is the significance of the phrase ‘another breeze’ here?
The phrase ‘another breeze’ here means that the free bird can think of another flight in
another breeze and can enjoy ‘sighing’ of trees.
3. What do ‘trade winds’ and ‘fat worm’ symbolize?
The trade winds blows softly through the whispering trees and can dream of fat worms-
good food to be had at will.
4. Why does ‘he name the sky his own’?
The free bird names the sky his own as he think of another breeze and the trade winds that
softly blow through the trees. He also has the full freedom of choosing and finding his
food.
5. How does the poet use the contrast between the two birds to reveal Racism in American
society?
There are two birds compared and contracted in the poem; caged bird and the free bird. The
caged bird is a metaphor of black Americans and the free bird a metaphor for White
Americans.

Extract 5

The caged bird sings


with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

1. How does the poet reveal the plight of the encaged bird?
The encaged bird is afraid of many unknown things. His conditions is miserable. His wings
are clipped and his feet is tied. He can hardly move in his cage and move through the bars
of rage. He is angry but helps. Though he is afraid he gives expression to his dream of
freedom.
2. Who is the poet?
The poet of the poem ‘I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings’ is Maya Angelou.
3. What do you mean by ‘a fearful trill of things unknown’?
The cages bird sings in a quivering voice when he sees unknown things is meant by a
fearful trill of things unknown.
4. What idea do you get about the African American’s from the stanza?
In Angelou’s time African American people did not feel free as they were still many
restrictions on them in the society based on race, gender, slavery and freedom.

Extract 6

But a bird that stalks


down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage

1. How does the poet contrast the wings of the free bird and the encaged bird?
As the poet depicts in the poem, the free bird floats on the back of the wind, dips his
wings in the orange sun rays and claims the sky as his own. He thinks of another breeze
through the trees and dreams of good eatables like fat worms waiting on bright lawn. He
lives in a colourful , bright and dreamy world. On the other hand, the caged bird walks
sadly inside his narrow cage and tries hard to see through the bars of his cage. His wings
are clipped and feet are tied. He lets out his ‘nightmare scream’ to express his agony,
anger and fear. Sometimes, the caged bird opens his throat to sing. He sings of freedom
and hope.

2. How does the free bird use the wind? What has happened to the feet of the caged bird?
The free bird leaps on the back of the wind, as if it is floating itself on the back of a
whirling current of water. Its feet have been tied, and it has been placed in a cage that
prevents it from flying away. Despite its fear, the caged bird continues to sing of
freedom.

3. What does the free bird think of?


The free bird think of the freedom her choice and the decisions. The free bird has the
opportunity to move through life soaking in its abundance. The people who are afforded
this freedom, forge through life making their own decisions and choices. “

4. Explain what the poet means by the reference to the “grave of dreams” and “a
nightmare scream”?
Maya Angelou explains in the poem I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings about the grave
of dreams which means dreams that seem to be dead and the meaning of the nightmare
screams is that the bad dreams cries out in fear.

5. Do you believe that the free bird and the caged bird are symbolic? Justify your opinion
with reference to the poem?
In Maya Angelou’s poem “Caged Bird” she provides a juxtaposition a free bird’s life
with that of a caged bird. The free bird symbolizes people who live in this world
unencumbered by prejudice of any type whether it be racial, socioeconomic, or
psychological. The free bird has the opportunity to move through life soaking in its
abundance. The people who are afforded this freedom, forge through life making their own
decisions and choices. “The caged bird fears for many unknown things but keenly desired.
He sings with a fearful trill because he feels insecure about future. He sings for freedom.

Extract 7

The caged bird sings


with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

1. What does the encaged bird sing about?


The encaged bird sings about freedom and equality.
2. How does the caged bird behave and why?

Encaged bird is despondent in his life of captivity and cries out frighteningly for freedom

3. How does the poet use the contrast between the two birds to reveal Racism in American
society?
There are two birds compared and contracted in the poem; caged bird and the free bird. The
caged bird is a metaphor of black Americans and the free bird a metaphor for White
Americans.
4. What idea do you get about the African American’s from the stanza?
In Angelou’s time African American people did not feel free as they were still many
restrictions on them in the society based on race, gender, slavery and freedom.

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