Sympathy Analysis

Symbols, Imagery, Wordplay

Form and Meter

"Sympathy" is a lyric poem, since it gives us a glimpse into the speaker's thoughts and emotions. Even though a lot of this poem describes what the caged bird feels, we can understand it as a lyric...

Speaker

This speaker sure ain't happy. He's looking at this little caged bird, and he feels its pain. It's stuck in a cage, it can't fly around as birds are meant to do, and it's suffering a lot because it...

Setting

We'll find two contrasting settings in "Sympathy": the confined space of the cage that the bird is trapped in, and the wide open spaces of nature. The cage where the bird hangs out (not voluntarily...

Sound Check

As we mentioned over in the "Form and Meter" section, this poem is pretty tightly structured in terms of meter and rhyme scheme. But that's not all that's going on here. Close readers will find the...

What's Up With the Title?

This poem has a simple title: "Sympathy." On one level, this title indicates the "sympathy" that the speaker feels for the caged bird. He identifies with this bird and he feels its suffering. In th...

Calling Card

We can identify Paul Laurence Dunbar's work because of the type of poetry he likes to write. Dude was really into writing lyrics. His poems often have a first person speaker, who tells us about his...

Tough-o-Meter

This poem isn't really all that difficult, but it does take some effort to scale. On the surface, its subject matter is simple: it's a poem about an unhappy bird. Nothing to it, right? Well, not so...

Trivia

Maya Angelou, the African-American writer and poet, took the title of her famous autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, from Dunbar's poem "Sympathy." Now we can show off our smarty-pants...

Steaminess Rating

No feathers flying here, we're afraid. The bird in this poem can't even dream of hanky-panky with another bird. Being stuck in a cage alone can really put a cramp in your social life.