“Now we are free. What do we want? We want education; we want plenty of work; we want good pay for it, but not any more or less than anyone else… and then you will see the down-trodden race rise up,” (John Adams 1). After segregation was abolished many people had their view on the world, some spoke out through their actions and speeches, but others like Maya Angelou showed their feelings in writing. “Caged bird” was among those pieces, Maya Angelou wrote this particular poem to show the differences that still stood between the black and whites. Angelou represents the theme that “Even after a change, people may continue to hope and strive for even greater things;” she shows this through her use of extended metaphor and by understanding the historical context of …show more content…
These particular words and phrases give the poem a clearer extent of the theme. The words free and caged are crucial to understanding both the theme of the poem, and the poem itself. Maya Angelou portrays the African-Americans as caged, not birds who were stored away for sometime, or a bird who was the opposite of another, but a caged bird. A bird that was locked away without any sense of freedom, a bird that was deprived the simple things a free bird as able to have. Both the phrases above tell of the fear African-Americans faced for what was unknown, but still hoped for it. The unknown she speaks of is the freedom to be and do whatever you are, the unknown of being an equal to whites all around the world. A unknown that no free slave had knowledge about, except that it was better than what they already had. An unknown so powerful that even the fear could not stop the longing for something greater and better, showing the theme “Even after change, people may continue to hope and strive for greater things,” in the poem “A caged Bird” once