Singing

Birds singing—how lovely. Hang on a minute, though. When a bird sings, we might think that it's all happy and joyful. It sounds so pretty after all, doesn't it? But the speaker reverses our expectations in this poem. He tells us that this little caged bird is singing not because it's happy, but because it's sad. Singing, in other words, is an expression of sadness and suffering in "Sympathy"—bad times, indeed.

• Line 15: When the speaker tells us that he knows why the caged bird sings, he suggests that the bird is singing because it's unhappy. After all, in the previous couple of stanzas, he's painted a pretty grim picture of the bird's life trapped in its cage.
• Lines 18-20: Here the speaker tells us explicitly that the bird's song isn't "a carol of joy or glee." In other words, this isn't a happy song. It's a sad song. In fact, it's not really a song at all. The speaker tells us in lines 19 and 20 that it's a "prayer" and a "plea." A plea for what? Why, for freedom, of course. This bird really wants to leave that cage.