Sympathy Paul Laurence Dunbar

1. Presentation By: Yana Berezina Sympathy Paul Laurence Dunbar

2. Aim: How can we have a better understanding about how it feels to be restrained from freedom? • Do Now: Did you ever feel stranded or feel like you couldn’t get out of one place?

3. Answer to the Do Now • I felt stranded when I was getting an MRI on my head after my car accident. I went to the doctor and he said to see if everything to was alright I should get my head checked. When I went there I didn’t know what to expect because I never got it done before. I had to lay down and I was put into a big tub that was closed everywhere. I felt like I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t move. There was plenty of air in it but I was so scared I thought I couldn’t breathe. The MRI took 30 minutes and after it was done I ran out of the office. I had to go back again for my neck but I never did because I didn’t want to feel like that again. It was one of the worst experiences I ever had and I felt so crammed in that tube.

4. What is the rhyme scheme in this poem? I know why the caged bird beats his wing         Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;   For he must fly back to his perch and cling     When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;         And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars     And they pulse again with a keener sting —     I know why he beats his wing! A B A A B A A

5. Can we remember the Formal Poetic Elements? What formal poetic element is this line describing? • “When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass” • Alliteration. The key words are Stirs, Soft, Springing.

6. What is Imagery? • *Reminder*- Imagery is words that create a picture in your head, usually using descriptions language that appeals to the five senses. • “Till its blood is red on the cruel bars” • I picture this as prison and someone getting killed. The person’s blood is dripping all over the cage and their in a lot pain.

7. What Thematic Poetic Element is described here? • “And the river flows like a stream of glass” • Simile- It use’s the word like to compare the river to a stream of glass. What do you think this line means? • This means that the river is very delicate because glass is very fragile and easily broken. The river had no meaning to it because glass is see through.

8. What can we describe this line as? • “But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core” • Personification. • This is personification because humans pray and the bird can’t send a prayer from the center of his heart. He’s in deep pain and he’s crying for help not to die. He’s trying to reveal a message from the deepness in his heart.

9. Overall Main Idea of the Poem • The overall main idea about this poem is that a guy is comparing him self to the bird in the cage. He is saying that he is isolated from society and needs his freedom. When a bird is in a cage it can’t fly out and enjoy it self. The bird can see the nature and fly free in its surroundings. He’s saying how he knows how a caged bird feels because he probably feels the same way.

10. Conclusion ( Answer to the Aim) When you are restrained from freedom you don’t get to experience life. You have no understand of the world around you and you don’t know what to do. If you communicate with somebody that didn’t have freedom much of their life, you would definitely be able to understand how that feels. It’s like your whole life your missing out on.