In these past weeks we been learning about Transcendentalist which is a vast word with a straight forward meaning. Where people feel empowered and their surrounding surpass their five senses intuition, imagination, overpower, logic, and reason. The source I used to explain transcendentalist was Still I Rise by Maya Angelou. It had a lot of meaning to me and connect to me too. Overall it talked about how she overcomes everyone's hatred toward her, every hateful word and faces every complication thrown at her and uses it to get stronger physically and successed.
The memoir also explores the idea the effects of displacement, and so Angelou is able to broaden her horizon on the effects of racism. Marguerite mostly remains in the black part of town and does not associate with white people. Angelou writes, “In Stamps the segregation was so complete that most Black children didn't really, absolutely know what whites looked like” (353). The segregation reached the point that the minorities are the ones that are unaware of how the majority of the population looked. This leads Marguerite to view whites as something entirely different from her and the people she knows.
Still I Rise advertisement does not support the typologies: assemblage, reappropriation, or genre play because it falls under redistribution instead. Redistribution happens when “a text reaches a new audience; expresses opinions and/or mobilizes collective action” (Edwards 47). This advertisement does just that as the “Still I Rise,” Maya Angelou poem is an already existing text. The audience of the advertisement is narrowed down to college students and the text is spread further within the
She wrote this to share with the world her attitude towards slavery. The power in Still I Rise belongs to Maya Angelou. She holds the power to stand up to the people who treat her like nothing. The last few lines in the first stanza “you may tread me in the very dirt” immediately set up the attitudes of the rest of the poem. Maya Angelou is referring to herself as nothing more than dirt on the ground.
The author Maya Angelou has a rather Hopeful and empowered tone in her poem reflecting her emotions about her subject and making her readers feel the same with her choice of words in expression. By choosing a positive route, one as a reader as well feel motivated enough to achieve and think as well with whom comes to a obstacles in our daily life. As she states, “You may trod me in the very dirt but still, like dust, I’ll Rise.” (Angelou 3) As in one could attempt to treat her unethical she will still overall in the end be invincible.
If the Islamic State is looking for a new national poem, they should look no further than Still I Rise by the late poet Maya Angelou. It is not in the original meaning of the work, but some of the words ring true for the terror group: “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.” At least, this must be how the United States feels after repeated attempts to destroy the group have only resulted in its growth. Looking at the past and looking towards the future, American intervention in the Middle East is similar.
After reading through “Still I Rise,” by Maya Angelou, one can identify many different poetic devices that support the theme, however, there are three devices that clearly and concisely get the author’s point across: rhetorical questions, personification, and repetition. The theme that these devices support is a message of pride and strength found inside both the individual and the community. In addition to the theme, Angelou voices her happiness and courage that she has regarding her heritage and race, because to her, being African-American is nothing to be ashamed about. Through the use of rhetorical questions, Angelou draws attention to why others react to her the way that they do, with hate and discrimination. In asking these questions,
Langston Hughes’ poem, “I, Too, Sing America”, and Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise”, have many similarities, and also many differences. These two poems were both written by poets who were fighting for the rights of African Americans, and women during their time period. The audience and the purpose of the two poems are the same, along with their time periods. One of the things slightly different about these poems, is the topic.
As mentioned before, Black people have been mistreated throughout history and Angelou chose to rise above it all. She talks about the struggles of being a woman in several of her poems. “Still I Rise” is similar to “Phenomenal Woman” in which they
“Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou and “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop are two tales of tenacity. Both poems are centered around failure, and were both written by influential, American, female poets, in the 1970s. However, they are two very different perspectives of failure, and two separate kinds of oppression. Elizabeth Bishop writes about an emotional oppression, and the belief that becoming upset can hold people down, and says that not emotional disasters will stop her.
“Still I Rise” is a powerful poem written by a powerful woman who knew what she stood for and was not afraid to express herself. Maya Angelou was an african-american born and raised in the “Jim Crow” south. She was raised around the time of racism and poverty in the 1950s-1960s. The most powerful person in her childhood that shaped her life was her mother’s boyfriend. When she was just seven years old her mother’s boyfriend raped her.
If winners write history, how do the failures, the underdogs; the people in the shadows endure the oppression, or do they rebel? In the poem “Still I Rise,” Maya Angelou argues that the mistreated can’t worry about the social norms. The speaker in the poem is ranting about how she is better than the others around her, even when they try to bring her down. She recites how she has all of these disapproved qualities of persistence and confidence, even when getting shot down. Additionally in her poem, Angelou uses banter and humor to make the argument that even persecution can’t stop people from defying the social norms.
The poems “I, Too” by Hughes and “Still I rise” by Maya Angelou are about the ways the African American slaves were treated in white households and in the public when slavery was permitted in America. The way the slaves were treated in the houses and the community was discriminatory. In both poems, the poets explained the situations that the slaves had to go through and how slaves reacted to the maltreatment of whites. In the poem “I.Too” by Hughes referred to each white households and how the owners treated them when guests came.
In Langston Hughes’s poem “I, Too, Sing America”, the context of the poem is based off of when he was segregated with an American family and how he will take a stand without hesitating. Langston Hughes is able to show the confidence and the beauty of a different race to another race showing that individuals are all equal. In Maya Angelou’s poem, “Still I Rise”, she is talking to a single person and communicates the potential of an individual when it comes to fighting for what is right. Maya Angelou describes her personal characteristics that may have obstructed the individual’s life. Although the individual that she is talking about has bashed her and mistreated her, she is seen as a great example to many other African Americans who have faced segregation by still standing up to what she believes in despite the bitterness she may have received.
A work of Maya Angelou was deeply influenced by her early life due to what happened at this time of her life. When she was seven she went to Chicago, Illinois to visit her mother since she lived with her brother at her paternal grandmother’s house. While visiting her mother in this time, her mother’s boyfriend raped her. Too afraid to tell anyone, Maya Angelou told her brother and in result her brother told their uncles. Their uncles killed her mother’s boyfriend out of rage, and this made Maya Angelou mute for five years until she met someone very important; Mrs. Flowers.
