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Paul Laurence Dunbar Sympathy

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When Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote the poem in 1893, I cannot say he had my situation in mind but rather the life and struggles of an African American man in the 19th century. Dunbar was born in Ohio in the summer of 1872 to two former slaves from the state of Kentucky. His mother, Matilda had been emancipated by President Lincoln some years before and moved herself and family to Ohio. Paul’s father, Joshua, escaped from enslavement sometime before the civil war ended and moved northern to join the north in battle. Matilda and Joshua married in the winter of 1871 just in time to build a home for their growing family. The marriage was short lived when after Joshua left it was up to Matilda to care for Paul and his younger sister. When Paul was …show more content…
Within Sympathy we see several uses of literary elements. The poem as a whole, is used as a symbol or metaphor to the theme. Dunbar is successful in comparing the agony of being a caged bird, only just watching the world instead of living in it, to a black man having to live a second rate life due to racism and discrimination throughout society in the late nineteen hundreds. The theme travels beyond the first stanza and into the second where it is grows into the powerless anger that the bird and speaker both feel as life passes before their eyes and they are denied the freedoms that others are able to enjoy. “I know why the caged bird beats his wing till its blood is red on the cruel bars;” like his winged-counterpart the speaker can relate to the drive of wanting to escape its confines. By the final stanza of the three stanza poem the bird, exhausted and in pain, the bird accepts his defeat by cage and sends a desperate prayer for deliverance that one day he may be free to enjoy the wonders of …show more content…
In line three we get our first glimpse into Dunbar’s use of alliteration; “When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass”. Alliteration again makes an appearance in lines five and six, “When the first bird sings and the first bud opes, / And the faint perfume from its chalice steals-“and again finally in the third stanza “When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore, - when he beats his bars and he would be free.” Dunbar also uses simile in line four, “And the river flows like a stream of glass.” In addition, the use of rhyme is very prevalent in Sympathy; being used in several places in the poem. Such words used as: “Alas, grass, and glass” all have the same ending sound causing the words to rhyme. We see it again in the words ‘Slopes and opes”, “steals and feels”, “scars and bars”, “free and glee”, and finally “cling, swing, and sting”. By using words that rhyme Dunbar is able to give a rhythm to the poem making it more enjoyable to read and remember. By using forms of imagery Dunbar is able to have the reader picture what is happening to the caged bird “When the first bird sings and the first bud opes, / and the faint perfume from its chalice steals” the reader can hear the birds singing, the reader can envision the buds opening, and smell the perfume. Lastly, Dunbar’s use of repetition really drives home the theme of the poem, “Caged bird” is

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