Question

1.

cussion.
This poem was written following the abolition of slavery: why do you think the Dunbar describes
the bird as continuing to be caged? How were African Americans denied certain freedoms even
after the abolition of slavery?

Answer 1

The speaker of the poem begins by telling us that he "knows how caged bird feels," and then spends the resting of the poem describing how terrible its life is. Dunbar's not talking about a real bird, though. Nope—instead the caged bird becomes a metaphor for the speaker's own lack of freedom, his own oppression.