Sympathy by Dunbar

Empathy or Sympathy
Paul Laurance Dunbar was an African – American whose poetry inspired by the struggles of his people. Although Dunbar had no direct experience of slavery, he believed African Americans continued to be treated as second-class citizens. Their freedom was limited due to their skin color. Dunbar tried to express his feelings of sorrow. He craved freedom and the ability to live like other groups of people. In order to share his sorrow and sadness Dunbar wrote poems. In this poem that entitled “sympathy “ he uses imagery of a caged bird to articulate his desire for freedom. He uses the caged bird as a metaphor in all three stanzas. In the first stanza the bird desires freedom, in the second stanza the bird seeks freedom and in the third stanza the bird recognizes that he will never achieve freedom.
In the first stanza Dunbar uses metaphor to show that he desires freedom. He uses fragments such as wind, river, sun, and singing birds to describe freedom to his reade...