In the poem Still I Rise by Maya Angelou two important ideas are hope and oppression and how they relate to the teenagers in the world today. The poem is about Maya Angelou’s life and how she has raised above all of the oppression and how she has hope from it all. During the poem she uses similes/metaphors ,violent verbs and historical references to create the idea of oppression and hope.
Maya Angelou uses similes and metaphors a lot in her poem to create a more powerful and bigger idea of the theme of hope and oppression.
Maya Angelou uses similes and metaphors a lot in her poem to create a more powerful and bigger idea of the theme of hope and oppression. Hope is an important idea in the poem and this metaphor from the poem is a good example of hope “I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide welling and swelling, I bear in the tide”. This metaphor is saying that Angelou is a black ocean which is the most powerful thing because you can’t move an ocean. This is Angelou’s way of saying she is very powerful and she is also very confident that she is that powerful. In the metaphor Angelou put in an internal rhyme “Welling and Swelling” this is to make the line go faster and make it stronger it is also saying that the line is powerful and can’t be stopped like Angelou she just keeps going and rising above all of her troubles with ease. This is related to hope because it gives people hope in the future to come and makes them believe that they can achieve a lot. This is related to teenagers because it can make them realize what the world was like, full of oppression and what in some countries it is still like that but she has overcome that and is inspiring to almost everyone including teens.
THIS SENTENCE IS TOO LONG – PLEASE SPLIT IT The way Maya Angelou uses poetic comparisons and things like internal rhymes in the poem, are specially placed to create a big effect on the poem and how we read the poem. She uses them in different parts of the stanzas to make things sad, more powerful, to make the line seem faster or to create a story of what is happening.
One of the similes she used was “Cause I laugh like I got gold mines diggin’ in my own backyard”. This simile is saying that she is so rich it is like she has gold mines in her backyard constantly having gold coming from it. She is so rich from all of her success after rising above all of the oppression and writing this poem about it all. She is also laughing because she might also be rich with happiness due to all of her success and being done with all of the obvious oppression she has faced. This can be related to teenagers and all of the bad things they’re going through which might not be oppression but it could be things like bullies and peer pressure into doing things that could affect their life forever. If they were to rise above that and work hard in an education and get a well paying job then they will be rich in both money wise and happiness and it would make their life ten times easier and more fun.
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Angelou uses violent verbs and adjectives to create a better idea of how bad it really was for her whilst dealing with oppression. In the first stanza she uses violent adjectives to create the scene.; “You may write me down in history with your bitter twisted lies”. This quote from the poem is significant because it shows just how bad it is for her to be living in that time of oppression and hardship. In the second line where she uses the violent adjectives ‘bitter and twisted’ she has used assonance to make the line sound more powerful and fast whilst also putting emphasis on the words bitter and twisted. Plosive adjectives are also used in this quote to make the poem sound more powerful and explosive by making the p and t sound like explosions when they are said.
Angelou is also saying that you can talk about her like that but she knows how bitter and twisted the lies will be just to put her down but she rises above it all and now lives her life full of hope and happiness.
The use of violent verbs is a great way to make the lines sound more aggressive and powerful and it also makes the poem sound very strong, interesting, clear and direct. As an African American it was very unusual and strange to be strong and have a lot of power.
In stanza six Angelou uses the violent words again with a mix of direct address to the reader.
“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”.
The effect of the combination of the violent verbs and the direct address makes it feel more powerful against you by saying that you are the ones doing this to me and creating a hurtful atmosphere that Angelou has to live in. The effect of the direct address is to make the stanza between Angelou and the reader. By doing this she forces you to think about it in more detail about that stanza and concentrate on her point of view. Another effect in this stanza is juxtaposition. Juxtaposition is the comparison of the shoot, cut, kill all being violent and very powerful. Then there is “like air I’ll rise” which is the juxtaposition shooting, cutting, killing powerful and then like air rising being very harmless and beautiful. In the stanza “you may” is repeated 3 times this is the use of repetition. The effect of this is making the “you may” hit like 3 bullets being very powerful.
Sadly this is what Maya Angelou faced on a day to day basis. This is also what happens to both African Americans and teenagers very often it might be people that just don’t like you or it might be due to race. In the world today there are groups trying to stop this such as the Black lives matter group.
Historical references in the poems are there to say this is my past and this is how it went.
“Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I Rise”
This reference is relating to all of the slaves and how at night they might get raped and beaten by the slave owners. Slaves had to live in constant fear and horror that it might happen again. Even though Angelou has been through all of that constant fear she decided to overcome all of it and rise up to be very powerful and stop all of the bad things happening to her. As it says above Angelou got sexually abused and raped but she still rose above it all and is now one of the most powerful African Americans to live. Sadly all over the world some teenagers get raped and sexually abused by adults and sometimes even other teenagers but after that some might grow the strength to overcome it and rise like Angelou did.
To conclude the Poem “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou is relatable to teenagers because of all of the modern day problems they face such as oppression and how they grow hope from the situation. I have learnt that even though you can hit rock bottom and still rise. I also learnt that teenagers are also very oppressed not only by race but by all other things about their person and personality
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