Poetry Analysis of “Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou and “I, Too” by Langston Hughes

Two stunning poems; “Caged Bird” and “I, Too” are shown through imagery, figurative language, and more. “Caged Bird” is about a lonely bird that is caged up, wondering what it would be like to be free. Maya Angelou explains throughout her poem what the bird is feeling and seeing through his bars. In the poem; “I, Too”, Langston Hughes lets you imagine his poem about a black boy feeling very lonely, and wondering why he is being treated differently. In these two poems, the bird should be free and flying, but instead is being kept in a cage, while the other birds are free and they “dare to claim(s) the sky.” The black boy wants people to know he is not any different, he is beautiful too. Both poems have a way of expressing one main theme.
“Caged Bird” and “I,Too” have Imagery, which is a big way that you can see the theme throughout these poems using your senses. In “Caged Bird” you can almost …show more content…
Maya says, “But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see through his bars of rage..” this is showing how the caged bird feels isolated from the norm, he is lonely and angry about the free birds and why they are treated differently, “for the caged bird sings for freedom.” In “I, Too” the boy wants to be treated the same as the whites, “Nobody’ll dare say to me, Eat in the kitchen, Then.” he also has anger built up, just as the bird does. In both poems, the bird and the boy long for freedom, they want to be normal and no longer be isolated. Although these poems do share a same theme of isolation, the caged bird knows what the freedoms of the other birds are and dreams of them, but the black boy is so isolated he really doesn’t know anything about the whites, except they get the privilege of eating at the dinner table. Some sort of anger is brought up in both poems upon isolation, and being