Earlyface

*NECO LITERATURE*


*(NUMBER 12)*

(i)Discrimination in society:  In the poem, the poet creates two vivid, contrasting images: freedom and bondage. In the first and fourth stanzas, we see a bird blissfully enjoying its freedom in the great outdoors. It uses the wind to aid its flight and 'dares to take the sky. The bird is entirely at liberty to soar into the sky and go where he wills. On the contrary, the caged bird 'stalks in its narrow cage' where it is held in by 'bar of rage.' Unlike the bird that ecstatically flies to any destination he pleases, the caged bird's 'wings are clipped', and his feet are tied'. Maya Angelou contrasts these images to convey the theme of freedom and bondage. The birds are symbolic. The free bird represents the whites in American society, while the caged bird represents the African-Americans. The whites were granted full constitutional rights and were allowed to enjoy all the benefits that come with them. On the other hand, the blacks were stripped of most of their rights, including basic human rights. The society was a very oppressive one, especially for the blacks. They were barred from many of the social amenities and benefits that the whites had easy access to.
              Consequently, they led difficult lifestyles . There was a sharp difference between the lifestyles of  whites and that of the blacks in the American society. The whites lived privileged, luxurious lifestyles while the blacks were treated as the dregs of the society. This is reflected in the poem. While the free bird thinks of 'another breeze' and feeds on 'fat worms,' the caged bird 'stands on the grave of dreams and 'shouts on a nightmare scream. The expression, 'fat worms' vividly depicts the abundance and privilege that the whites enjoyed when compared to the blacks. The bird feeds on 'fat worms, not sickly or stringy ones. This expression connotes abundance, as opposed to the caged bird, which has nothing of the sort. The caged bird's 'wings are clipped', and so it cannot soar, it cannot take to the skies like its counterpart. In the same vein, while the whites had the confidence and, more importantly, the permission of the society to breathe life into their dreams, the blacks did not. Hence, just like the caged bird who 'stands on the grave of dreams', the blacks were forced to watch their goals and aspirations fade into obscurity. In the same vein that the caged bird 'shouts on a nightmare scream', the blacks made attempts to fight for themselves, to express their dissatisfaction with the status quo. However they were nothing but shadow(s) in the society. They were unseen and unheard, and so, for a long time their agitations were simply dismissed or met with force.


(ii)Man's desire and longing for freedom is instinctive:

This theme is also evident in the poem. Despite being cloistered in a claustrophobic space practically all its life, 'the caged bird sings of freedom. The caged bird is unfamiliar with freedom, so 'it sings with a fearful trill." Its sad song has undertones of fear because it does not know exactly what freedom is, or what its implications are. This idea is mirrored in the third stanza, where the bird sings of things unknown but longed for still.' By implication, the poet suggests that the yearning for freedom is instinctive. The inference from this idea, therefore, is that it is unnatural for a man to put his fellow man in bondage. However, this is what obtained for many years in the American society. Blacks were carted away from their homelands to plantations in Haiti and other parts of the world. Many of them survived a tortuous journey, only to get to their destination and realize that they were doomed to live as slaves to white masters. After many years, slavery was abolished in the American society, but the blacks continued to lead lives characterized by oppression and hardship, and they continued to year for freedom. This longing is one of the things that the poet seeks to represent in the poem. It can be inferred from the poem that the desire for freedom in man is instinctive. In the third and last stanzas, the poet states that the bird 'sings of things unknown but longed for still.' In the same vein, the African Americans sought to be liberated from their oppressive status in the society. Even though they had never enjoyed freedom and all its perks, they continued to fight for it. They understood that, as humans, they deserved to be free to live their lives and bring their ideas into reality.
           The poet seems to imply that with freedom, it is possible to restructure and revise history as well determine the future. Likewise, the lack of freedom means that other people would be responsible for determining the trajectory of one's journey through life. The story of the African-American in the US begins and ends with the issue of slavery. Whenever the story of the African-American is narrated, it is predicated on the historical past that deals with slavery, a story that has been determined largely by pon-black narrators. Unfortunately, the inability of the African-American to "own' the rights to his own story means that other people have determined for him his identity, his name as well as his economic and social status. Thus, the yearning for freedom that would facilitate the creation of a new positive identity for the African-American, is at the centre of this poem. However, it should be stressed that the theme of a longing for freedom is universal and from the perspective of Angelou, it is only right that all humans should be free to assert their rights to self-determination, using their own personally sourced criteria. When critiqued from this perspective, the poem possesses the quality of universal applicability.


(iii) The Theme of limitation:
By contrast, another theme that runs through this poem is the theme of limitation. It is almost interesting that themes of freedom and limitation are both important to the poet. This theme is important and significant because wherever there is freedom, it is usually at the expense of others, who are in slavery. In this poem, the theme of limitation foregrounds the enslavement of African-Americans for more than 300 years. The words 'caged', 'cut' and 'tied' all represent different types of limitation. Lines 8-11 say: But a bird that stalks/down his narrow cage/can seldom see through/his bars of rage'.The bird, in this poem, is limited in its inability to fly, even though it is a bird. The word "bird", especially if it is a flying bird, collocates with words like 'fly', 'flew', 'perched', 'landed' and so on. A bird hardly ever collocates with 'stalks' and this marks the beginning of the theme of limitation.
              The poetic persona emphasizes this bird's limitation by telling the readers that it is in a 'narrow cage'. It is used in the possessive to show that it is specifically for this bird - "his narrow cage". A person does not willingly lock himself in a cage as a cage is not a comfortable place. A cage is a contraption that physically limits whatever has been caged to the space within the cage. Yet, even in the space within the cage, the bird's ability to move around is still limited because the cage is described as a 'narrow cage' (line 9). The caged bird is narrowed down in space, in dreams, in life, in opportunities and hope. The idea of the narrow cage is to make him 'narrow', both externally and internally. At the metaphorical level of interpretation, such narrow space suggests the restriction of opportunities to excel in different spheres of life. Line 10 also indicates that the caged bird 'can seldom see through his bars of rage'. This implies that the caged bird is also limited in its ability to see into the  future and shape its destiny. Apart from this, it is also blinded by the anger born out of its impotence and powerlessness to change the direction of its life. Its natural state has been made unnatural; since it is unable to fly or walk. It is limited not just in space but by its Boyd and by itself and these only add to its frustration.