This seminar paper will look at a poem written by Maya Angelou, Still I rise, 1978. An analysis of this poem will be provided, exploring the meaning of the poem and the language used to present a certain image to the audience.
“Dr. Angelou experienced the brutality of racial discrimination, but she also absorbed the unshakable faith and values of traditional African-American family, community, and culture”(www.mayaangelou.com, 2014).
This poem is Maya Angelou speaking to the audience as she explains the problems she has overcome such as; racism, sexism, bullying and other problems in her life that she has managed to move on from.This poem is set in a first person narrative, Angelou explains to the audience about the good and bad times within her life, presented in a graceful way. By the poem being set in first person narrative, this allows the audience to connect to the poet on a deeper level because the tone of the poem is more intense throughout, making it more real for the audience. This genre of poetry is lyric poetry, relating to Angelou’s feelings and thoughts throughout the poem, addressing the audience directly.
This poem is structured within eight stanzas, the first seven stanzas contain four lines within each stanza, however,the last stanza contains fifteen lines, with major emphasis on, “I rise”. The last fifteen lines may have been used to conclude the poem at the end, for one last time show the audience her head held up high. During the poem, the tone throughout is positive and negative, although you may hear the strength and passion in her voice about overcoming these problems, she still presents anger. This allows the reader to experience in sections how Angelou really felt.
The setting is created throughout the ...
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...problems may seem big, someone else is struggling to overcome something even more outrageous.
Do you think this poem will help the audience is any way?
This poem can definitely help anyone that is going through a hard time, the motivation Angelou has herself is enough to encourage people to continue. Again, this poem allowed me to understand that the small things i struggle with everyday, are not the biggest obstacle i will have to overcome in my life.
What is the theme of this poem?
In my opinion, the theme of this poem would be hope, hope that life will become a greater place to be in. That the problems that people go through on a daily basis will disappear and everyone will get along and live the perfect life.
Works Cited
Maya Angelou - Biography. 2014. Maya Angelou - Biography. [ONLINE] Available at: http://mayaangelou.com/bio/. [Accessed 11 April 2014].
Ms. Angelou left her birth place as a young child after her parents had broken up. Ms. Angelou and her brother were sent to live with her fathers’ Mother in Stamps, Arkansas. Some may call Ms. Angelou’s 1969 autobiography ”I Know Why the Caged Bird Sing” her claim to fame, some may call her poetry her occupation, and more over there are still some that would like to call her Freelance writings Maya Angelou’s life’s work. Ms. Angelou was so much more. Ms. Angelou has been known for being a Civil Rights activist, a poet, a philosopher, a teacher, an Award-winning Author, an actress, a screenwriter and the
She did not complain about her childhood, racism, divorce, losing her friends, or rejection. She has overcome all the obstacles with courage; that is another lesson we can learn. In her poem, she says, “You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I’ll rise!” Angelou knew who she was. She learned not to live according to people’s opinions.
This literary critique was found on the Bryant Library database. It talks about how well Maya conveys her message to her readers as well as portraying vivid scenes in her reader’s minds’. Maya’s sense of story and her passionate desire to overcome obstacles and strive for greatness and self-appreciation is what makes Maya an outlier. Living in America, Angelou believed that African American as a whole must find emotional, intellectual, and spiritual sustenance through reverting back to their “home” of Africa. According to Maya, “Home” was the best place to capture a sense of family, past, and tradition. When it comes to Maya’s works of literature, her novels seems to be more critically acclaimed then her poetry. With that being said, Angelou pursues harsh social and political issues involving African American in her poems. Some of these themes are the struggle for civil rights in America and Africa, the feminist movement, Maya’s relationship with her son, and her awareness of the difficulties of living in America's struggling classes. Nevertheless, in all of Maya’s works of literature she is able to “harness the power of the word” through an extraordinary understanding of the language and events she uses and went through. Reading this critique made me have a better understanding of the process Maya went through in order to illustrate her life to her readers. It was not just sitting down with a pen and paper and just writing thoughts down. It was really, Maya being able to perfect something that she c...
She does a great job at using both of the appeals in “Still I Rise”. Maya Angelou was a civil rights activist, an educator, and a poet. Maya Angelou’s constant use of “I” or “my” in her poem is her greatest use of ethos. This poem is her story so she is telling it from experience. For example, when Maya says “Does my sassiness upset you?” (Angelou 5) she draws in the audience by speaking of herself. She lets the audience know that this is a real thing. Another way that Angelou draws in her audience with ethos is when she says “Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave.” (Angelou 39-40) That quote gives Maya Angelou credibility because she knows the hardships of slavery and racism because of her ancestors and culture. The second and most effectively used rhetorical device used is pathos. The entire poem draws in the audience emotionally, even from the first sentence. I believe she was so great at using pathos because it was from her heart. She lived through it, she went through the pain, and she overcame that pain. She was passionate about what she was writing and you could absolutely feel it just by reading it. A great example of pathos and one of my favorite “You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I'll rise.” (Angelou 21-24) Maya’s use of words in this stanza appeals to the audience emotionally. While reading it, you feel like those things are directly happening to you. The other use of pathos that is effective is when she claims that she will rise. It appeals emotionally because it gives the audience hope, strength, and determination that they can rise. The more it’s repeated, the more effective it is. The more you say it, the more that she and the audience believe that it is true. The last example of how this poem appeals emotionally is when she says “Does my
Ms. Angelou's rhetorical strategy of comparison and contrast serves as effectively as her brilliant, flowing sentences sprinkled with colorful simile and imagery. Poetic phrases describing a voice "like a river diminishing to a stream, and then a trickle" or the audience's conditioned responses as "Amen's and Yes, sir's began to fall around the room like rain through a ragged umbrella" paint vivid images.
Maya Angelou describes the situation, feelings and descriptions of a person (probably herself) who does not need people to try and lift her up. Maya shows us within the poem that all those oppressed in general are strong. Within the poem we are shown some of the feelings and thoughts people have displayed against her, but in reality she won’t let them get her down. Maya’s moral opulence allows her to rise above where her ancestors fell to slavery, carrying herself as a strong woman. Her ancestors dream was to have a life in society without the fear of what might happen to them (slavery).
The poem is a combination of beauty and poignancy. It is a discovery in a trajectory path of rise and fall of human values and modernity. She is a sole traveler, a traveler apart in a literary romp afresh, tracing the thinning line of time and action.
Maya Angelou is an author and poet who has risen to fame for her emotionally filled novels and her deep, heartfelt poetry. Her novels mainly focus on her life and humanity with special emphasis on her ideas of what it means to live. The way she utilizes many different styles to grab and keep readers’ attention through something as simple as an autobiography is astounding. This command of the English language and the grace with which she writes allows for a pleasant reading experience. Her style is especially prominent in "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", where the early events of Angelou’s life are vividly described to the reader in the postmodern literary fashion.
In her first autobiography, Maya Angelou tells about her childhood through her graduation through, “Graduation”, from “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” when she is about to graduate. She starts as an excited graduate because she was finally going to receive her diploma, a reward for all her academic accomplishments. On the day of her graduation finally comes, that happiness turns into doubt about her future as she believes that black people will be nothing more than potential athletes or servants to white people. It wasn’t until Henry Reed started to sing the Negro National Anthem that she felt on top of the world again. Throughout her graduation she felt excited to disappointed, until Henry Reed sang and made her feel better.
Interestingly, towards the end of the poem, Angelou gets deeper into how she feels about her confidence by the way she walks and carries herself. She states, “Now you understand / Just why my head’s not bowed. / I don’t shout or jump about / Or have to talk real loud. / When you see me passing, / It ought to make you proud (Line ). She makes it clear that you do not have to actively seek attention by acting out of character, or trying to be noticed. The amount of self-esteem is determined by the way a woman carries herself. Angelou says, “It’s in the click of my heels, / The bend of my hair, / the palm of my hand, / The need for my care” (Line ). Maya Angelou uses a woman’s body to symbolize the strength, power, and confidence within.
Born 1928, in St. Louis, Mo, Marguerite Johnson’s childhood was not an easy one. Her parents divorced when she young and her paternal grandmother cared for her for several years in Stamps, Arkansas (Funk & Wagnalis).At the age of 8, Angelou was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. The man was found guilty but released only after serving a day in prison. He was subsequently killed by her uncles( Funk & Wagnalis ).After this incident, Maya Angelou remained silent for several years...
Maya Angelou is a very inspiring and courageous woman who says how she feels through her poems without coming off in a hateful manner, but rather a sophisticated and intelligent way. Her poems varies between subjects such as love, passion,racism and the way of life. However, in her poem “Phenomenal Woman” she speaks for all women around the world who doesn’t feel they fit in with today’s society.
This poem, like “Caged Bird” is also unstructured verse, and sporadic rhyme; this is very common of Maya Angelou 's work. This poem is extremely blunt in it 's working making it very easy to understand. “Phenomenal Woman” is all about being proud of who you are. What makes you special and noticeable is not the world 's standards of what you should look like but the confidence that you live by. The poem is almost like a list of characteristics that make the speaker a real woman. Some of the things that make her a real woman is “the reach of my arms” “The stride of my step” “ The sun of my smile” just to name a few. The speaker is obviously extremely confident in herself. I believe that Angelou is trying to express that she is so phenomenally woman because of how she expresses and views herself and does not let other people define her. The poem expresses that you are beautiful based on how you see yourself, not how the world sees you, and that your success is all in your confidence. This is expressed in some of the language she uses. “Now you understand-Just why my head’s not bowed.” “When you see me passing-It ought to make you proud.” She is just being wholly herself and that greatly contributes to her amazing success. She says how the pretty people ask her why guys always fall over her and she even states that the guys themselves do not understand why they are so drawn to her. “Men themselves have wondered-What they see in me.” “When I try to
The tone can be confident, proud, complementary, cheerful and sassy. Confident because, in each stanza Maya states some type of criticism that has been said, then overpowers it using her voice to reveal what she thinks. She uses “I say” in every stanza is a cue that she is about to speak her mind. In stanza four she describes her confidence, saying “Now you understand just why my head 's not bowed. I don’t shout or jump about or have to talk real loud. When you see me passing, it ought to make you proud”. The message that she is trying to say is that when she is put down by others, she does not get down or have to attract attention, because of her confidence, she attracts attention when she walks by. Another example, proud because of the several times she uses phenomenal throughout the poem. When she explains why she is a phenomenal woman it sets the tone that she is proud of who he is. Complementary because if reading the poem aloud, it would sound like the reader is complimenting themselves. With Maya Angelou writing all the positive things of being a phenomenal woman, the readers are complimenting themselves of being phenomenal and should be proud of it. Although, the poem may come across as cheerful, when the reader deeply analyzes the poem a serious tone is displayed. Angelou wants the reader to actually feel what she is saying, not just read it as if it has no meaning. This poem shows her strength
It’s about confidence in oneself. Maya Angelou had a very hard upbringing, poverty, and rape at a young age. She was a victim of discrimination, abuse by men, and even turning to prostitution. She rebounded by finding the confidence and self-worth in herself. This poem is about how even though you may not be a classic beauty, your beauty lies in you and is exuded in being confident and the ability to believe in yourself.