ENGL347 muted ,’ ( 1997 p133 ) ‘ Junkie Monkey Reel ’ takes a turn when , just as it appears that the victim has been silenced after the word ‘ bone ,’ ‘ Sockets ’ is heard , which not only suggests a new start with the capital ‘ S ,’ but also creates an internal rhythmic sound with the assonance of ‘ o .’ This sound is then continued throughout the poem ; the assonance of ‘ o ’ can be heard from the first stanza through to the last , when it is heard in ‘ How long will / This monkey dance ?’ ( l . 21 ). This last two-line stanza first carries enjambment , permitting a moment of suspense , before the end-stop on the final line ; this dramatization , emphasised by the direct linguistic assertiveness , confirms the poem a protest piece , as the reader has been grasped and interrogated directly , further reiterating the lack of muteness in Angelou ’ s work . Thus , the musicality in the repeated ‘ o ’ sounds
demonstrates resistance against the silencing of victims ; Angelou herself , in this way , resists being silenced . Through this , she is able to overtly critique this struggle for black women in America . Field also reinforces that ‘ the political imperative of protecting the black community ’ in exchange of ‘ personal sanctity ’ has been ‘ critiqued ’ by Angelou herself ( 2009 p151 ). As a means of protest , this message is loudly heard .
In her second poem , ‘ Caged Bird ,’ Angelou targets those in positions of privilege within marginalised groups . Between the struggles of white women and black men , black women have frequently found themselves excluded and forsaken . In protest against this , Angelou exposes
the divides within oppressed groups , revealing that there can be no progression towards equality without unity . It is important to first address that the two birds in Angelou ’ s poem are presented as male ; from the outset , this exposes the very issue of the exclusion of black women within progressive movements . No doubt , this poem is reflective of Paul Laurence Dunbar ’ s ‘ Sympathy ,’ in which the bird is referred to with the pronoun ‘ he ;’ it can thus be assumed that Dunbar ’ s poem protests against racism towards men only , and Angelou ’ s use of two male birds exposes this exclusion of women as problematic and nonprogressive . She was clearly aware that , as bell hooks highlights , the 1960s black liberation movement ‘ chose to endorse ’ the ‘ oppression of black women ,’ similar to how white women had largely excluded black women from their feminism ( hooks 104 p181 ). The present tense of Angelou ’ s poem indicates that these issues are ongoing , with her understanding that , as hooks later implied , the ‘ system had not changed ,’ even after these movements had sacrificed black women ( Ibid p182 ). The free bird in this instance can be seen as the privileged within these marginalised groups , while the caged bird represents black women , metaphorically ‘ tied ’ ( Angelou 2009 p72 ) by the bounds of intersectional struggle . Angelou presents the free bird as restricted as long as the caged bird is . For example , the caged bird ‘ sings of freedom ’ ( l . 22 ), which helps the reader to realise that the free bird actually remains mute throughout ; while the caged bird ‘ sings ,’ ( l . 15 ) the free bird
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