Poem Pictorial Essay: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Essay Sample)

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Poem Pictorial Essay: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
By Maya Angelou
The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
(Lika)
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
(Codey)
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 fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
(Prassana)
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
(Trask)
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
(Vang)
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.
Introduction
The image of a caged bird is a type of poem that broadly deploys figurative language. The caged bird represents a bird that cannot explore other places since it is confined and cannot, therefore, explore the free will of the wild bird (Imagery In Caged Bird 3). However, the author has used the caged bird metaphorically to represent a slave who has been limited of his or her freedom and therefore has to work only within the scopes of their confinement. In addition, a slave is always bound to their masters and will only do things that they are commissioned to do by their master in the same way a caged bird is to their masters.
How the Pictorial Essay works as a representation of the poem
The first picture clearly illustrates how the caged bird “dips his wings in the orange sun rays and dares to claim the sky” (Angelou 1). The stanza represents the poem in the context that readers are presented with a picture, and its master frees the idea that the sky is the only limit for the bird in case it from the cage. For instance, in the black man who was slaved by the white man, the sky was their only limit, and they could claim whatever they wanted in case the master freed them. On the other hand, the second picture explains how the cage of the bird is relatively narrow and, therefore, the bird cannot free itself and only works within the confinement of its master (Imagery In Caged Bird 2). Angelou, in this stanza, has presented the poem in a view that assigns some human characters to the bird, an aspect termed as personification. The scope of the caged bird not being able to fly and move shows how