Maya Angelou lived through a time where she was discriminated against for not only her race but also her gender. In her poem “Still I Rise” Angelou sarcastically talks about how no matter what is thrown at her she will rise above it and she will do it with resilience and confidence. Her poem discusses racism and sexism and gives minorities and women a sense of hope to overcome and endure both of those things. Angelou’s self-assurance in the poem makes you believe that you too can overcome whatever obstacle. Although this poem was intended for blacks, and women, and specifically black women, the poem helps build up strong and courageous people no matter what race or gender you are. Maya Angelou in “Still I Rise” uses both pathos and ethos to …show more content…
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
"Angelou, Maya (née Marguerite Annie Johnson)." Encyclopedia of African-american Writing. Amenia: Grey House Publishing, 2009. Credo Reference. Web. 12 March 2014.
Maya Angelou is a strong woman, how she manages to hold herself together made me feel as if she could speak to all audiences. She prevailed and picked herself up no matter long it had taken. For example, "As a result of a traumatic experience, she had become depressed and withdrawn and unable, or unwilling, to speak "yet after a year of moping around the house things made a change for the best . For me she brought a sense of nostalgia,many of us growing up have all came across something we had a sweet spot for, an attachment to, or love for. An example "the sweet chocolate drops that I loved more than anything in the world" does not just apply to food, but a place, or person,made me think of my favorite delights I sought out for as a child giving off a warming effect in my memory. Her relationship with Mrs. Bertha Flowers I found was inspiring, touching, and respectful.
Maya Angelou was one of America’s greatest writers in history. She was known for her many writings and for her part in Civil Rights Movements. Maya Angelou went through many hardships during her childhood, the most prevalent of those, racism over her skin color. This racism affected where she grew up, where she went to school, even where she got a job. “My education and that of my Black associates were quite different from the education of our white schoolmates. In the classroom we all learned past participles, but in the streets and in our homes the Blacks learned to drops s’s from plurals and suffixes from past tense verbs.” (Angelou 221) Maya Angelou was a strong believer in a good education and many of those beliefs were described in her
... all audiences can face their personal hardships. No matter the color of your skin or gender, Maya Angelou’s works are timeless testaments to the potential of the human spirit to overcome adversity, and constant reminders that even if the world is against us, we must still rise.
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.
Rising Up in Still I Rise by Maya Angelou ? Still I Rise? by Maya Angelou is directed towards blacks on how to be proud of their ancestry, themselves, and their overall appearance. The poem is a special and motivating poem that African-Americans (and other races for that matter) should read and take to heart. According to African-Americans, Maya Angelou states that no matter what white Americans (slave owners) say or do to African-Americans (slaves) they can still rise up to make a better life for themselves and their race as a whole.
As I was reading through the story “Champion of the World” by Maya Angelou (written in 1959) I noticed that the author uses many different techniques like sentence structure, pathos, and logos to show and tell what she supports.
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.
Maya Angelou's life growing up was not always perfect. Given the birth name of Marguerite Ann Johnson, Maya Angelou was borin in St. Louis, Missouri on April 4th, 1928. Although she was born there, she spent most of her childhood in Stamps, Arkansas with her Grandmother, Annie Henderson and in San Fransico, California with her mother. Maya Angelou is still living today and teaches at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. Maya had to deal with many hard things growing up and although it wasn't perfect, she's lead a very eventful life.
Walker, Pierre A. Racial protest, identity, words, and form in Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Vol. 22. West Chester: Collage Literature, n.d. Literary Reference Center. Web. 8 Apr. 2014. .
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.
Still I Rise, written by Maya Angelou, was an inspiring poem about overcoming hardships and always looking forward to the future. The poem was centralized
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.
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
Her use of repetition, imagery and alliteration all helped the reader set the theme for her poem. The theme she tries to establish is of it is not how a woman looks or what she does that makes her phenomenal, but how she carries herself and her inner mystery. It 's about confidence in oneself. Maya Angelou had a very hard upbringing, poverty, a rape at a young age. She was a victim of discrimination, abuse by men, 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. It is about acceptance and appreciation who we are.It 's Self confidence, finding that beauty within regardless of other people 's perception. It 's knowing why you were made to be so much more than the average woman. It 's not ego or conceit. She is proud to be Maya Angelou.In a time where black women were not considered beautiful by any