Over the years, writers have used literary devices that refer to specific aspects of literature. They are used as an art form to communicate ideas through language, where the reader can recognize, identify, interpret and analyze them. Literary devices help the writer create and convey meaning through language in which readers can simply understand their works. In the poem “Sympathy” by Paul Laurence Dunbar, three important elements are used to help convey the meaning and theme of the poem: diction, the choice of words that emphasize the meaning, the image words that help the reader create a mental image and symbolism in which objects come to represent an idea greater than the object itself. Diction is used as the choice of words that both conveys and emphasizes the meaning or theme of a poem through distinctions of sound, mood, rhythm, and definition. In “Sympathy,” Dunbar states that he knows how the bird feels: “I know how the caged bird feels, alas! It is a way in which Dunbar communicates with readers by expressing what he and many black people felt while being trapped....