Sympathy

The bird is a figure for Black Americans who live under a racist system. The bird’s ability to see its natural habitat is representative of Black Americans’ keen awareness of what they lose because of racial oppression. The birds outside the cage represent Americans—white Americans, specifically—who have the full benefits of citizenship because of their race. The fact that there is a bird in the cage and birds outside the cage underscores that only oppression makes Black Americans so different from white Americans. The bird’s injuries are symbols of the wounding that comes from The Psychological Reality of Racism.

The bird’s singing is a symbol of art or other self-expression to communicate the agony of living under racial oppression. There is always the possibility that the listener may hear this song and assume it is an expression of joy, just as readers may misread Black artistic expression; more specifically in Dunbar’s career, his poetry in African American Vernacular English was frequently misread as his and Black people’s contentment with their own oppression.