I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
By Maya Angelou
A free bird leaps on the back

Of the wind and floats downstream
Till the current ends and dips his wing
In the orange suns rays
And dares to claim the sky.
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.
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.
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.
But a caged BIRD stands on the grave of dreams

His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.
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.
 Published in 1983, “I know why the caged bird sings” is a poem written by Maya Angelou.
Through this poem, she holds for us to see the sufferings of the African-Americans. The “free
bird” reigns the skies and then swoops down to wallow in the pool of sunlight – it owns the
great blue. However, the caged bird is trapped by the “bars of rage” – it has no other way to
express itself but to sing “with a fearful trill”. It “sings of freedom” which can be heard “on the
distant hill”. The “free bird” glides through “another breeze” while “fat worms” wait for him.
However, wings clipped and feet tied, the “caged bird” keeps singing of freedom.
 It was a powerful poem by Maya Angelou, the renowned US poet and civil rights activist who
died in 2014. This poetry is famous for its intimate description of freedom, and for the role of
personal voice as a true element of it.
 ‌Maya Angelou compares, in this poem, the lives of a free bird, and one living in a cage. A free
Bird dares to claim the sky, showing how important liberty can be in also achieving the most
difficult goals. A Caged Bird instead, his wings are clipped, and his feet are tied as he stands on
the grave of dreams and only has his voice to play with and sings of freedom.
 It reflects on the mindless oppression that the Blacks were subjected back in the olden days. Her
portrayal of the injustice using a “free bird” and a “caged bird” leaves us with a bitter taste that
reminds us of the long-abolished slavery.
 ‌She also has an autobiography with the same title that was published in 1969. Which is ‌the book
chronicles her life from age 3 through age 16, recounting an unsettled and sometimes traumatic
childhood that included rape and racism.
 That book became one of the most widely read and taught books written by an African
American woman.
 After the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Angelou was inspired by a meeting with
writer James Baldwin and cartoonist Jules Feiffer to write I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings as a
way of dealing with the death of her friend and to draw attention to her own personal struggles
with racism.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Maya Angelou
 Her real name is Marguerite Johnson and was born in St. Louis, Missouri on April 4, 1948
 She had a broad career as a singer, dancer, actress, composer, and Hollywood’s first female
black director, but became most famous as a writer, editor, essayist, playwright, and poet.
 As a civil rights activist, Angelou worked for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
 She was also an educator and served as the Reynolds professor of American Studies at Wake
Forest University. By 1975, wrote Carol E. Neubauer in Southern Women Writers: The New
Generation, Angelou was recognized “as a spokesperson for… all people who are committed to
raising the moral standards of living in the United States.”
 She served on two presidential committees, for Gerald Ford in 1975 and for Jimmy Carter in
1977.
 In 2000, She was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Bill Clinton. In 2010, she was
awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the U.S., by President
Barack Obama. Angelou was awarded over 50 honorary degrees before her death.
POEM THEMES
 Oppression and the African-American Experience

The poem describes a "caged bird"—a bird that is trapped in a “narrow cage” with limited
mobility, only able to sing about the freedom it has never had and cannot attain. This caged bird
is an extended metaphor for the African American community’s past and on-going experience of
race-based oppression in the United States in particular, and can also be read as portraying the
experience of any oppressed group. The metaphor captures the overwhelming agony and
cruelty of the oppression of marginalized communities by relating it to the emotional suffering
of the caged bird.
The poem uses the metaphor of the bird to capture not just the way that oppression imposes
overt physical limitations on the oppressed, but also the way that those limitations emotionally
and psychologically impact the oppressed. For instance, in lines 10-11 the poem states that the
caged bird "can seldom see through his bars," which seems at first as if the poem is going to
explain how being in the cage limits the bird's line of sight. But instead, the poem further
describes the bars as being "bars of rage"—the bird is imprisoned and certainly the physical bars
of the cage limit its line of sight, but the bird can "seldom see" because these conditions make
the bird blind with rage. By fusing the limits imposed by the cage with the emotional impact
those limits inspire, the poem makes clear that the environment and the anger can't be
separated from one another. The oppression of the cage doesn’t just keep the bird captive; the
captivity changes the bird, and in so doing robs the bird of its very self.
The poem's point about the bird's song springing from sadness is critically important, because,
historically, many defenders of slavery and other forms oppression of African Americans argued
that the song and dance that was a part of African American culture indicated that black people
were in fact joyful and content with their situation. The idea that such music might be an
expression of cultural or emotional pain was ignored (in large part because ignoring it meant
that those who benefitted from such oppression could also justify the oppression as not being
oppressive at all).
 Freedom vs. Captivity
The poem “Caged Bird” compares and contrasts the experience of a free bird with that of a bird
held in captivity. While part of this contrast is meant to convey the injustice forced upon the
captive bird, the comparison also allows the poem to explore how a free being thinks and acts,
and to argue that freedom is a natural state for living beings. As an extended metaphor for the
historical oppression of African Americans in the United States, the idea that freedom is a
human’s natural state of existence further demonstrates the cruelty and injustice of race-based
oppression in the United States. The caged bird’s longing for freedom also demonstrates the
black community's resilience against this oppression.
 Freedom as a Universal and Natural Right
Given that the caged bird in the poem is an extended metaphor for the historic struggle of the
African American community under historical and ongoing racist oppression, the idea that
freedom is a biological impulse argues against the inhumane cruelty of oppression. The
metaphor also demonstrates the resilience of the black community. Because of the
omnipresence of racism throughout United States history, African Americans—like the caged
bird—have never experienced true freedom—not in the same way that those who are not
forced to endure systemic oppression do. That African Americans nonetheless continue longing
for this “thing unknown” illustrates that, despite the hopelessness that the metaphor of the
caged bird conveys, the black community’s desire for freedom, and determination to achieve it,
remains.
SYMBOLS
 Cage
The cage is meant to evoke the cultural and historical oppression of the African American
community and its suffering as a result of that oppression—thus, the cage could be seen as
representing the literal and legal enslavement of Africans in the United States, which ended in
1865. The cage could also be a representation of the less overt, but still oppressive legal and
cultural limitations (such as racial segregation, voter suppression, etc.) of imposed on African
Americans following the end of slavery and into the current day.
 The Free and Caged Birds

The birds in "Caged Bird" can be seen as symbolizing two different racial groups. The caged bird,
which has been forced to live its entire life in captivity, can be seen as representing the African
American community, who suffer from race-based oppression. The cage holding the caged bird
can be seen as symbolizing the bird's oppression, whether in the form of slavery, race-based
segregation after the end of slavery, or the more subtle but still pervasive and pernicious forms
of oppression that continue to oppress African American communities today. The "bars of rage"
through which the bird can't see capture the way that oppression faced by African Americans is
not just physical, but also emotional and psychological. The caged bird's song recalls African
American spirituals and musical traditions, which often focused on a freedom denied to those
who were singing them. In all, the caged bird portrays an African American community that has
been terrorized by oppression, but that nonetheless continues to year and work for freedom.
The free bird symbolizes the white community, which has oppressed African Americans. In
particular the way that the free bird assumes that its freedom gives it the right to "claim the sky"
seems to capture the way that the white community has and often continues to see the
oppression of African Americans not as a crime, but rather as a sign of white superiority.

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What is the poem comparing?

How does the poem portray oppression?

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

A free bird leaps on the back

But a BIRD that stalks down his narrow cage

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill

The free bird thinks of another breeze

But a caged BIRD stands on the grave of dreams

The caged bird sings with

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 Oppression and the African-American Experience

 Freedom vs. Captivity

 Freedom as a Universal and Natural Right

 The Free and Caged Birds

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