The phrase shows how the children felt free with the presence of the sun, like animals coming out of cages.
Although you didn't show it, this question refers to the short story "All Summer in a Day."
By reading this story, we can see that:
To reinforce this freedom, the narrator says that when the children feel the solar energy, they acted to "like escaped animals from their caves," that is, like animals that are free, coming out of their prisons.
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