Forever Rising
The poem Still I Rise is written by Afro-American Maya Angelou, and it successfully and effectively elicits emotion in the reader and illuminates the centuries of mistreatment and oppression of black people through the use of various literary devices such as imagery, a defiant tone, rhetoric and repetition.
Angelou uses imagery in her poem Still I Rise to elicit sympathy from the readers when she writes “Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops. Weakened by my soulful cries.” This description accurately describes the physical and mental appearance of the majority of the slaves in the world, with them being valued less than cattle, and not seen as human beings, but as a cheap and easily replaceable tool to use for hard and manual labour.
The narrator of the poem uses a defiant tone of voice when asking the rhetorical questions, such as “Does my sassiness upset you? Does my haughtiness offend you? Or does my sexiness upset you?” as if the narrator is speaking directly to her master, knowing full well that the owners or masters of the slaves wish to see them broken and defeated, forever kept as a slave.
However, the narrator wishes the opposite, giving hope to reader and the other slaves around her by constantly repeating the two words “I rise” throughout the poem, showing that no matter what their oppressors do to them, they will overthrow the chains of their imprisonment and like the welling and swelling tide of a black ocean, take back their rights and be the free people they once could have been.
But even today, decades after the freedom of the blacks, discrimination still happens all around the world. Can it, will it ever cease to exist in the world that is ours?
Hello Jamie, I really enjoy your photos. Xie xie.
ReplyDeletePersonally I didn't get the sense of slave trade at all, I personally felt that this was mostly about the Civil Rights during the 1960's. So the slave trade would have been not as common 16-19th centuries. African-Americans were likely fighting for equal rights, wages and freedom. (Alberto)
ReplyDeleteYour analysis of the poem Still I Rise was extraordinary. The pictures that you included with your analysis really contributed and exaggerated the message of what the Afro-Americans had gone through in the past. Your entire analysis, including the identification of the different literary techniques clearly explained and related to history and what really happened.
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