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Still I Rise by Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou's poem "Still I Rise" confronts racism through its refrain highlighting the speaker's determination to overcome racial inequality. The poet uses various literary devices like similes, rhetorical questions, and personification to emphasize her focus and add deeper meaning. For example, similes portray her confidence and success in spite of discrimination. Rhetorical questions directly confront racism, and personification presents racism as deadly weapons harming people. The form of quatrains and auditory devices in the poem further support its theme of refusing to be oppressed by a shameful racist past or stereotypes.

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1K views1 page

Still I Rise by Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou's poem "Still I Rise" confronts racism through its refrain highlighting the speaker's determination to overcome racial inequality. The poet uses various literary devices like similes, rhetorical questions, and personification to emphasize her focus and add deeper meaning. For example, similes portray her confidence and success in spite of discrimination. Rhetorical questions directly confront racism, and personification presents racism as deadly weapons harming people. The form of quatrains and auditory devices in the poem further support its theme of refusing to be oppressed by a shameful racist past or stereotypes.

Uploaded by

Vanilla Sandwich
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Maya Angelou presents the issue of racism and her reaction to it in her poem Still I Rise.

The
refrain of ‘I rise’ effectively highlights how the speaker is courageous to overcome the racial
inequality in almost every aspect in the lives of black people. This also indicates that she has
a determined spirit to ‘rise’ to the top. Angelou responded sharply and confidently to racism.
She believes she is ‘the dream’ and ‘hope of the slave’, which implies that she is representing
all people of her race, and speak up like a leader.

The poet uses different kinds of figurative language to emphasise her focus and also to add an
extra layer of meaning to her words. Firstly, in the third line of the second, fifth and seventh
stanza, Angelou uses similes and hyperboles. For example, ‘walk like I’ve got oil wells’
suggests how she might be materially wealthy or that she has succeeded in life. Similarly, the
simile is also used in the other two stanzas to describe the action of walking and dancing. A
person typically walks really assertively if he/she is wealthy. Therefore, the similes show
how she is super confident and is not put down by the discrimination.

Secondly, rhetorical questions can be found at the beginning of some stanzas, such as ‘[does]
my sassiness upset you?’. The poet directly confronts racism against black people. She
notices that people ‘beset with gloom’ because she succeeded and also how they have a
stereotype that people with colour are ‘sassy’. Angelou does not expect an answer when she
asks whether her ‘sassiness upset [them]’. Or, if they want to see her ‘broken’ and depressed,
as conveyed by the simile of ‘teardrops’, because this is exactly what the society wanted.
Lastly, ‘words’, ‘eyes’ and ‘hatefulness’ are personified by the poet as something that can
‘cut’, ‘kill’ and ‘shoot’, which suggests how racism are like deadly weapons that could
seriously damage a person. Angelou is directly accusing the society for their hostility and
bitterness towards her race.

Furthermore, the form and structure of the poem also helps to present the key idea. The poem
is structured in quatrains in the first seven stanzas. The purpose of it is to give a fuller
expression of a theme, which is racism. In the first stanza, the anaphora of ‘you may’
demonstrates how the writer gives her heart and soul to declare that nothing could oppress
her. Auditory devices such as alliteration and internal rhyme are also applied in the eighth
stanza. The repeated ‘h’, which creates a rhythmic effect because they are stressed while
reading. It continues to support the idea that the poet will not be held down by a shameful
past. The internal rhyme of ‘welling’ and ‘swelling’ is particularly significant because they
refers to how the speaker will ‘rise’- the literal meaning of ‘welling’ and becomes ‘larger’-
the meaning of ‘swelling’, despite the discrimination.

Still I Rise is an emotionally touching and inspiring poem that is based around Maya
Angelou’s experience as a black woman. It encourages the reader to stand up against racial
discrimination. The poem is written in first person narration, as indicated by ‘I’, with the
speaker - commonly considered as the poet herself, addressing all injustices towards people
of her race as ‘you’.

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