. Major decisions are often precipitated by a traumatic experience. As a result, we make daily choices to excel or surrender. A choice is defined by Webster’s dictionary as an act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or more possibilities. Therefore, our choices stem from our mindset. Our choices affect every situation and ultimately determine whether we sabotage and kill an idea or breathe life into a challenge. The deciding factor in all life and death hurdles can become transforming. Moreover, what is spoken daily whether through our Zen moments of affirmation, meditation or simple conversation is symbolic of our underlying creation of choice or our need to make a choice. Since the power of choice can speak life or death, our words are the vehicles for our life transitions, struggles, and aspirations. The choice is derived …show more content…
Maya Angelou use of simile, metaphors and repetition in “Still I Rise,” is to illustrate endurance and triumph over struggles. The writer’s voice, although written in first person pronoun is representative of a group of people. Angelou’s poem was published ten years after a period of historical proportions to people of color in America, specifically the African American community. The speaker addresses discrimination after a period of drastic change. A period of transformation for African Americans which included the enactment of desegregation and civil rights and affirmative action laws.
The poem is written in eight quadratic free verse stanzas, with repetitive phrases of “I rise” inserted after each line of the previous stanza. The author uses repetition of “Still I Rise,” for emphasis [Paraphrased: for every time I was cast down I was able to ascend …move from a lower position to a higher one]. The poem uses an ABAB end rhyme in every other line except for the third and the last stanzas. The third stanza is ABCB, with an internal rhyme with the words “…certainty of tides…like hopes springing