How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #1
I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars (8-9)
Stop hurting yourself, birdie. Well… we'd probably be hurting ourselves too if we were stuck in a little cage with nowhere to go. The image of the bird beating his wings until they're bloody conveys to us just how much this bird suffers as a result of its confinement.
Quote #2
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting— (12-13)
These lines evoke suffering through the imagery of physical scars. The bird's old scars are re-opened as it beats against its cage, making these scars "pulse again with a keener sting." The imagery, in other words, works to give us a sense of recurring suffering. This bird suffers over and over again.
Quote #3
I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,— (15-16)
Again, through the depiction of physical suffering—of the bird's "bruised" wing and its "sore" bosom—the speaker evokes the idea of suffering. What's more, by saying he knows why the bird "sings," he's telling us that, like the bird, he also suffers.