Sympathy Race Quotes

With these first words, the speaker tells us that he identifies with the caged bird. This is important because it suggests that, like the bird, the speaker suffers from not being free. And while there's no mention of race here, we can make a connection with race. After all, the African American struggle has been a struggle for freedom. So it's quite possible that the speaker is alluding to racial oppression here.

The bird is beating his wing because he wants to be free, of course. The image of its bloodied wings beating against the bars can be read to allude to the history of violence that's defined the African-American experience in the U.S. Sure, there's no explicit mention of race in these lines, but we know that African-Americans have shed a lot of blood in America. So the image of "blood" here evokes that history of blood and violence.

By telling us that what the bird really wants is freedom, the speaker again connects the bird's suffering to his own (because he knows why the caged bird is singing). On a more subtle level, he connects that suffering to the suffering of African Americans. After all, freedom is not only what this bird wants, it's also what all African Americans want.