132 pages • 4 hours read
Ruth Minsky SenderA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Beyond the book’s title, cages appear throughout The Cage. Beginning with Riva’s opening poem in the Prologue, Riva establishes the idea that she herself is in a “cage,” surrounded by “barbed wire,” from which she hopes to escape to rise “like a free bird.”
Though she writes the Prologue’s poem from Camp Mittelsteine, Riva inhabits many cages throughout the text. What are some of the various types of “cages” that surround her in the course of the book? How can they be compared?
Questions like these might be helpful in formulating a response:
Teaching Suggestion: You may wish to start by brainstorming with students the different types of cages that Riva experiences within the text. For example, there are not only literal “cages”; the wagons and cattle cars that transport her are cages, always barred with doors and covers.