In "Sympathy" by Paul Laurence Dunbar, how does the poem's straightforward language depict the plight of African-Americans, and was it as effective...

In "Sympathy," Paul Laurence Dunbar uses the extended metaphor of a bird in a cage to express the plight of African-Americans. His use of easily understood imagery in all three stanzas conveys the agony of being less-than-free. For example, in the first stanza, the bird is subjected to "When the sun is bright on the upland slopes; When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass" (lines 2-3). While the bird sees the enticements of...

In "Sympathy," Paul Laurence Dunbar uses the extended metaphor of a bird in a cage to express the plight of African-Americans. His use of easily understood imagery in all three stanzas conveys the agony of being less-than-free. For example, in the first stanza, the bird is subjected to "When the sun is bright on the upland slopes; When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass" (lines 2-3). While the bird sees the enticements of nature, it can not escape from its cage. In the second stanza, the bird beats his wing on the cage's bars until it is sore, and in the third stanza, the bird sings not out of joy but out of pain: "It is not a carol of joy or glee, But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core" (lines 19-20).

While "Sympathy" is written in Standard English, some of Dunbar's poems, such as "Lover's Lane," are written in different dialects. "Lover's Lane" begins, " Summah night an’ sighin’ breeze,/ ‘Long de lovah’s lane;/ Frien’ly, shadder–mekin’ trees,/ ‘Long de lovah’s lane" (lines 1-4). His dialect poems, which tried to capture the voices of freed slaves (he was writing around the turn of the 20th century), were extremely popular with white and African-American audiences alike. Many people argue that while his Standard English poems, many of which use extended metaphors to capture the essence of the African-American experience, were eloquent, his dialect poems were even more powerful. In part, his dialect poems were revolutionary in that they captured voices that had not been part of formal poetry before. Dunbar identified African-American vernacular language as something beautiful and distinctive--something that merited pride and preservation.