Student Question
What two scenes does the caged bird see?
Quick answer:
The caged bird sees very little, primarily its "bars of rage," symbolizing its lack of freedom. Metaphorically, it stands on the "grave of dreams," indicating the death of its aspirations. This contrasts sharply with the free bird, which enjoys expansive views like "orange sun rays" and "fat worms on a dawn bright lawn." The poem highlights the caged bird's confinement and limited perspective compared to the freedom and abundance experienced by the free bird.
The caged bird doesn't see very much. Indeed, as the speaker says in stanza two, the caged bird "can seldom see through / his bars of rage." Throughout the poem, we are told only what the caged bird does not see.
In the fifth stanza, the speaker says that the caged bird "stands on the grave of dreams." This is of course a metaphor, and the caged bird does not literally see this grave. Nonetheless, the image implies that the caged bird sees, metaphorically, only the bars of the cage and the death of its freedom that those bars symbolize.
The fact that the caged bird sees only the bars of his cage is in stark contrast to the scenes that the free bird sees. The free bird sees "the orange sun rays" and "the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn." These images of course emphasize, by contrast, the dearth of scenes available to the caged bird.
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