Example

Things Compared

Meaning and Effect

Simile: “Better I had swung from the end of a rope / like a flag” (8-9)

A person swinging on a rope (from being hanged) and a flag that hangs from a rope.

Connects nationalism and the government with death.

Simile: “Part of you may live alone inside, / like a stone at the bottom of a well” (15-16)

A person living in prison and a stone at the bottom of a well.

Suggests the loneliness and isolation that comes with living in prison.

Simile: “Don’t say it’s no big thing: / it’s like the snapping of a green branch” (35-36)

“the woman you love” no longer loving you and the snapping of a green branch.

Gives shape to the emotion that would be felt by a person imprisoned while their lover left them.

Metaphor: “as long as the jewel / on the left side of your chest doesn’t lose its luster” (47-48)

The heart, and a jewel.

Ends the poem by saying the heart is the most valuable thing an imprisoned person must protect while they serve their time.

See sample answer above.

See sample answer below.

“Caged Bird” talks about the universal themes of freedom and confinement—it is easily read as an extended metaphor about the value of freedom in human life. “the caged bird sings / with a fearful trill / of things unknown / but longed for still” (31-34) because although he is too afraid of the outside world to leave his cage and see it, he also has an inner longing for freedom that cannot be smothered by fear. Angelou suggests that people who feel confined by their lives will always have this longing for freedom, even if they are afraid to experience it at the same time. The free bird, in contrast to the caged bird, “dares to claim” (7) the vast things he dreams of. The caged bird represents cowards who are too paralyzed by fear to follow their dreams, and the free bird represents the few brave enough to chase what they want.