Sympathy Paul Laurence Dunbar

In 1917-1938, The Harlem Renaissance was in full swing. In a small New York borough called Harlem, black people were beginning to gain social, cultural, and artistic freedom. Black poets, writers, musicians, and scholars flocked to Harlem in...

Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “Sympathy” is a twenty-one line, three-stanza poem that metaphorically compares African-American life to that of a caged bird. The author suggests that African-Americans are trapped in an inescapable cage. It is interesting...