The Theme Of Struggle In Maya Angelou's 'Still I Rise'

Struggle. We all go through it. But, how can an individual overcome it? Although struggle is within us all, we all deal with it differently, we all find different ways to get over it and succeed! Whatever that struggle is, whether at home, at school, or even self struggle. People may ask, ‘how should one be, or act when wanting to succeed?’. Personal traits that are needed to overcome struggles are being determined, having a motivation,and having an individual mindset.

An important trait that is needed for overcoming struggle, is being determined. In ‘Curtis Aikens and the American Dream’, the author has said after Curtis was finally able to read, “He could easily feel the way his life was about to change, and more than anything impelled him

In Maya Angelou’s poem, ‘Still I Rise’, she said “You may write me down in history with your bitter twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt. But still, like dust, I’ll rise” (Angelou 1-4). This relates to my topic because it shows that Maya did not let hate bring her down. The more hate they showed, the more she contributed her talents around telling them ‘I don’t care!’. She was following the path she created, not the one that people should think she should follow. She loved doing what she did, and so did a lot of other people. This also relates to my struggle, because my parents were not supportive in my interests. One of them being, my future career. I was fully committed to wanting to become a forensic detective. My dad said things like ‘I’m not going to pay for your college, to do something like that’, and ‘that's not a job a girl should do’. That didn’t bring me down, I was going to push through and do what I want to do. But While it might be true that having an individual mindset can help overcome struggle, others might say that following your own mindset can lead to getting in trouble and failing, rather than succeeding. One can argue with this because, if you only follow someone else, where does that lead the other person to? Their goal or theirs? The point of trying to succeed is to accomplish one’s own goal, not someone