Sympathy

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1899

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

“Sympathy” is a lyrical poem written in first person. It includes three stanzas with relatively regular rhyme. The first and third stanzas have the rhyme scheme ABAABCC. The second stanza has the rhyme scheme ABAABAA. The first and last lines within each stanza are virtually identical, and these lines are the speaker’s declaration that they understand the reality of life in a cage. The other lines in each stanza include concrete details about the life of the bird. This structure derives from the extended metaphor between bird and speaker throughout the poem.

In terms of meter, most of the poetic feet are iambs (an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable) and anapests (two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable). There are generally three to four feet per line. For example, “And the faint | perfume | from its cha | lice steals—” (Line 6) has four feet (tetrameter) and includes an anapest followed by an iamb, another anapest, and an iamb. The following line, “I know what | the caged | bird feels!” (Line 7)—has three feet (trimeter) with an anapest followed by two iambs. The line length and meter are less regular in the third stanza, which helps register the disorder that comes from caging what should be free.

Metaphor

A metaphor is a comparison between two unalike things. In “Sympathy,” the poem is an extended comparison between the bird and the speaker. In the first stanza, there is a comparison between the physical and emotional state of the bird and that of the speaker. In the second stanza, there is a comparison between the psychological state of the bird and the speaker. In the third stanza, there is a comparison between the efforts of the bird to use its song to express its desperation and the efforts of the speaker to use their poem to express the agony of oppression.

Readers of poetry in English have likely encountered many poems that compare birds and humans. This familiar comparison between bird and speaker gives the white American reader a handle on how racial oppression must feel for the speaker. The metaphor reinforces Dunbar’s effort to create sympathy by helping the reader understand The Psychological Reality of Racism.

Repetition

Dunbar uses repetition throughout the poem. Lines 1, 7, 8, 14, 15, and 21 all begin with the phrase “I know” (Line 1). Repetition of this phrase helps the reader connect the experience of the bird in the intervening lines to the experience of the speaker in the first and last lines that frame each stanza. These repeated phrases serve as containers for the painful experience within each stanza and thus underscore the constraints both bird and speaker live under.

There are small differences between the first and last lines of each stanza, however. The addition of exclamations points in the last lines of stanzas underscores the intensity of the emotion the speaker feels. Ultimately, Dunbar uses repetition of lines and repetition of exclamations to manage tone in the poem, stressing the sympathy and understanding the speaker has for the caged bird, and the sympathy the reader may have for both bird and speaker.