Caged Bird BY MAYA ANGELOU ,Short summary and analysis

 Caged Bird

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 sun 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.

Short summary and analysis 

* The poem describes the opposing experiences between two birds: one bird is able to live in nature as it pleases, while a different caged bird suffers in captivity. The latter bird sings both to cope with its circumstances and to express its own longing for freedom.

* 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 Black community's past and ongoing experience of racism in the United States in particular, and can also be read as portraying the experience of any oppressed group.

* The poem's point about the bird's song springing from sadness is critically important, because, historically, many defenders of slavery and other forms of oppression argued that the song and dance that was a part of Black American culture indicated that Black people were in fact joyful and content with their situation. 

*  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.

* The poem's first key insight about freedom pertains to what a free being is allowed to think about. Putting that more concretely: because the free bird is, well, free, it never has to think about its own freedom. Instead, the free bird spends its time living, and doing what it wants. When the free bird thinks, it is only of “another breeze” or “fat worms.” Thus, for the free bird, freedom is natural, subconscious. The free bird never has to think about freedom. It simply is free.

* The caged bird, on the other hand, because it lacks freedom, spends all of its time thinking and singing about freedom. Much like breathing, freedom is experienced as something that is only thought of when it is no longer there. When one can breathe freely, there is no need to think about it—however, when one can’t breathe, of course, it becomes the only thing one can think of.

* In this way, the poem makes clear the emotional and even intellectual exhaustion that comes from a lack of freedom, the way it creates a prison not just for a physical body but also for the mind.

* The caged bird, being tied and clipped, seems to represent the ways oppression not only imprisons individuals and communities, but also how it seeks to limit them in ways that can then be used to justify their imprisonment: for instance, a bird with clipped wings and bound feet couldn’t possibly survive outside a cage, so the person who put it there can then justify keeping the bird in the cage to keep it safe.

* The repetition of the entire third stanza—which also appears, word for word, as the poem’s sixth stanza—further demonstrates the resilience of the black community.

* In the third stanza, the speaker tells the reader that the caged bird “sings with a fearful trill / of things unknown / but longed for still / and his tune is heard / on the distant hill” which demonstrates that, despite the hopelessness of the situation, the bird continues to sing loudly enough that he is heard from far away, inspiring others. 

* The repetition of the stanza as the sixth and final stanza of the poem conveys that the caged bird does not simply give up, but rather will continue to sing for freedom— thus, this repetition seems to suggest that even as Black Americans endure its intolerable circumstances, it will continue to yearn and work for freedom.

Themes : 

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.

Freedom as a Universal and Natural Right

Even as "Caged Bird" explores the behavior of the free and the captive, it also makes clear that the desire for freedom is an organic, universal impulse that cannot be bound or destroyed. The poem states that the caged bird sings “of things unknown / but longed for still.” The speaker then clarifies: “the caged bird / sings of freedom.” Because freedom is a thing “unknown” to the caged bird, the implication is that the caged bird was not taken from his natural environment, but rather was likely born in his cage and has never known anything else.