Authors Theme

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Authors put a great deal of time and effort into their pieces of work to uncover the best way to portray specific feelings and emotions. Two prime examples of this are in Babette Deutsch's "Ape" and Paul Laurence Dunbar's "Sympathy". Each poet uses unique phrases and literary devices to explain their feelings of sympathy for caged creatures.
In "Ape", Deutsch uses phrases such as "His eyes are mournful, but the long lined palm." "He grips the bars; his pained state grows to a brown sturdy framed in dusty fur." Both of these phrases show the animals sorrow and views of escape. "They eyes, poor sorrow's jewels, seldom wink, but to his grinning public, as before, show endless patience, endlessly abused." This phrase shows the animals emotions as well. Words such as mournful, pained, poor, and abused were all used to draw the attention of the sympathy the author has for the caged animal. The use of rhyming helps to ease the flow of the poem. This is used in "Ape". An example of this is, "His eyes are mournful, but the long lined palm he thrusts between the bars expects the best. His old man's face as innocent as calm, the beggar puts compassion to the test and fails." Another literary tool used in the poem is tone. Tone is the attitude the author has towards what he or she is interpreting. This is used to create an overall mood of the work. Words such as mournful, beggar, fail, pained state, refused, poor, sorrow, and abused to create this mood of sympathy.
In "Sympathy", Dunbar does an excellent job of depicting the animals, a bird, feelings of sadness and will to escape its caged state. One phrase depicting this is "I know why the caged bird beats his wing, till its blood is red on the cruel bars." Another example is "And pain still throbs in the old, old scars." A last example is in line 16 and 17 when the author says "When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore. When he beats his bars and he would be free; it is n...