I know why the caged birds sing written by Maya Angelou centers around the difference between a free bird and a caged bird. The author Maya Angelou uses a metaphor to illustrate the difference between African-Americans and Whites during the civil right era as the author wants to express her feelings at discrimination she faced during her life. I am angry about the unfairness caused by skin color. The caged bird indicates the Black is treated unfairly compared to the free bird in the poem while the free bird indicates the Whites who can have more right and are treated better in the society.

 The first stanza begins with,“ A free bird leaps on the back of the wind, and floats downstream till the current ends.”This shows us that the free bird gets to fly around looking at the amazing things around him. The quote “the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn” means that the free bird has plenty of opportunities to grab its food so he is too lazy to get to other places. However,  the caged bird loses all its freedom to fly around as everyone bird does. It can barely see the sky outside the cage. He is trapped by the cage for live. He gets no chance to fly in the sky or play around with a bunch of flowers as “his wings are clipped and his feet are tied”.  I am sympathetic to the caged bird as the situation he is in is terrible. He has no right to fly like a normal bird and he has no hope and opportunity as he is caged. The author uses the contrast of the different situations these two birds are in to show us that the inequality between races during the civil right times. The blacks are isolated due to their skin color and they don’t have the right to speak up while Whites have freedom to do what they want. I can’t understand why the difference of skin color can form such a “cage” to isolate Blacks from being well educated or treated fairly.

However, the third stanza shows us how the caged bird is still sing out of freedom as it says”Het opens his throat to sing.” This shows that the caged bird still sings even though it is angry. It makes me confused because I think it is our human nature that we don’t sing if we are pained.

When I read that “The free bird thinks of another breeze and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees, and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn, and he names the sky his own. “ my question is solved as I can understand the reason why the caged bird sings. He sings because he wants to feel how “breeze” is like and how “fat worms” taste like. He sings because it is the only way for him to show his presence and anger about the world.  He stills has hopes for the unknown thing in the world. This reminds me of the experiences that the author has. She grew up on the South era and experienced discrimination from others because of her black skin color, but she didn’t give up and used literacy as her “voice” to speak out for inequality in the society, which is similar to the idea of  “singing for freedom” in the poem. The author shows me an aspect of human nature as I can see that there are still lots of discrimination of races or sexes in our society. It is our human nature to feel scared or upset of the unfairness. However, we should always keep hopes in our hearts as we only live once so we need to speak for our own rights.. The last stanza says, ““The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown, but longed for still .” This shows that the cage has become the caged bird’s grave of his dream now. The caged bird becomes more powerful on the way singing for freedom. His courage is inspiring and the bird’s song should be respected.

 In my opinion, discrimination itself not scary, but staying silent for discrimination is scary. Therefore, we should be honest and brave about what we are facing now and have the courage to change the unfairness around us . We might have our own ways to sing for freedom and equality, but they are all powerful and respective as our world will get a bit better because of our voices.