Equality Inside of Sympathy

Equality Inside of Sympathy

Inside of poems is a deeper meaning, another theme that explains the author’s reason of writing. Sympathy means to be understanding of another person’s feelings and to be in agreement with another person’s feelings. “Sympathy” is the title of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s most famous poem, and it demonstrates the emotion of sympathy. On the other hand, the imagery, or words that create mental images, and symbolism, using something as a representation of a concept or another object, actually displays the ruthless fight for equality. It sounds a cry for likeness in every aspect and shows the restriction of reaching this equivalence.

The theme of the fight for equality is easily explained with symbolism in Dunbar’s “Sympathy”. The most prominent symbol is the caged bird, representing the confined person or people that are striving to reach the state of equality. This feeling is described throughout the poem, but most blatant is that of which displays the pinnacle of despair:

It is not a carol of joy or glee

But a prayer it [he] sends from its [his] deep heart’s core

But a plea, that upward to heaven it [he] flings- (Dunbar 18-20)

The bird is used to represent those who resort to a prayer because it is the sole act that models the realization of helplessness is the biggest reason why the bird is the most important symbol. On another note, the cage holding the bird in is also a symbol. The cage epitomizes an oppressor, showing that the goal is being blocked by an obstacle. The obstacle is inescapable “When he beats his bars and would be free,” concluding that the bird wishes to be free of the imprisonment or the force keeping it from obtaining equality (line 17). This expresses the cage as a symbol for the force hampering those who yearn for equality. These two