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STILL, I RISE
Maya Angelou Maya, STANZA 5, ABOUT THE POET, "…
STILL, I RISE
Maya Angelou 
STANZA 6
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The word "Shoot, cut, kill" shows defiance and power.
Monosyllabic words (verbs) Shoot, cut, kill is known as violence verbs.
Repitition words. Shoot me with "your words". Cut me with "your eyes". Kill me with "your hatefulness".
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"Still I Rise" presents in the face of oppression the bold defiance of the speaker, implied to be a black woman.
The speaker understands that society "may" commit violence against her. It also has the potential to write "lies" about the speaker and present them as evidence.
This oppressor is full of "bitter, twisted lies" and "hatefulness" towards the speaker, addressed throughout as "you," and hopes to see the speaker "broken" in both body and spirit.
STANZA 1
Line 2 : "bitter, twisted lies" - As if someone has criticized her.
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Line 4 : "like dust" - In the middle, showing something powerless (intended to ‘you’) but Still I Rise
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Line 4 : The use of comma (,) : known as caesura in literature, meaning to break or interrupt the rhythm.
STANZA 2
Line 1 : "my sassiness" - more female, powerful women. Describe her life as someone sassy, bold and fresh.
Line 2 : "why you beset with gloom" - very demanding, targeting people who are racists towards her
Beset (verb) - of a problem or difficulty / troubling someone or something persistently / bedevil / torture/ oppress or harass.
Line 3 : "I walk like I've got oil wells" - simile, an imagery of wealth and power.
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STANZA 9
Anaphora: The repetition of the word " I rise " is similar to the sound of a heartbeat or can be considered an incantation
The speaker talks about her past in slavery and eventually becoming free is similar to getting out of the night to the daybreak or to a new future
This stanza talks about the consequences of slavery as even in terror they have hope and dreams even if their hope never came true.
The writer of this poem is considered the hope of the race as she carries and embodies the hopes and dreams of her ancestor which she considers a give from them and felt thankful.
STANZA 7
The word "sexiness" means that she started to bring her greatest strength, femininity and she used that as a weapon for herself.
The word "dance" in the line 3 means freedom. In this line, its mean freedom for the women. The word of "diamond" means beauty and wealth. It means, people see women if they have beauty or wealth.
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STANZA 8
"Huts of history's shame I rise,
Past that rooted the pain I rise "
Both these lines mean the poet does not have wealthy upbringing.
"History's shame" past history being slave.
"Past that rooted the pain" means the poet experienced lot of pain in her past because she's a black woman. The poet still rise after what history affected them.
"I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide"
The "black ocean" is a metaphor that she extended across those two lines. It is a striking image that we do not expect it to be black and she referencing her heritage in a metaphor way.
"Leaping and wide" is extended metaphor because she uses the ocean because there's no more powerful than the ocean.
The word "in the tide" come back to the image of tide in line 10 that means the certains tide.
STANZA 3
- “Rising” is almost like a natural ability to her and elemental.
- Poet uses natural world image
- Literary device: Simile
“like moons and like suns,”
- The use of abstract simile that is universal
“like hopes springing high,”
- The refrain at the end of the stanza contains modal verb (will) “Still I'll rise.”
- Showing that there is no option of giving up.
Stanza 3 Analysis
- The speaker used natural elements as comparison to herself, being timeless, predictable and eternal as the "moons", "suns" and "tides".
- In every obstacles she face she will conquer, just as the sun and moon rise and tides of the ocean flow. In the same way that people raise their hopes for good things in life, she will also rise.
- Unstoppable, and her courage and determination are as inevitable as the passage of time marked by the motions of natural elements.
Moral Values
- Rising is almost most natural thing about her.
- There is no option of giving up and we have to rise.
- Elemental sense of power to rise up
- Hopes are still there even if we are in depressing times.
STANZA 4
- Poet uses second person pronoun “You” targeting to the reader with rhetorical questions.
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- “Weakened by my soulful cries?” – being affected intensely
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“Bowed head and lowered eyes,”
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,”
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Stanza 4 Analysis
- Abuser been asked by the speaker about what they wish to happen to her.
2.With rethorical questions she asks if they would enjoy watching her as a broken spirit, head weighed down by sadness and pain. Her eyes lowered as if she must not look at her abuser.
- Stanza four paints a sadness emotion and devastating image of a desperate person, with a body weakened and shoulders.
STANZA 5
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The speaker also walks as though she possesses “oil wells,” laughs as though she owns “gold mines,” and dances as though she has “diamonds” suggestively placed between her thighs.
These symbols are all objects of great value. Oil wells provide their owners with wealth and, consequently, power. Gold and diamonds are expensive and prized for their beauty.
Thus, regardless of what society says, the speaker assigns importance to her body and gives it strength and beauty. The placement of the diamonds, in particular, "...at the meeting of...[her] thighs" refers specifically to the womanhood of the speaker.
Taken as a whole, the lines declare and reclaim the speaker’s body and power in her femininity as a black woman.
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ABOUT THE POET
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She lived in America and worked for both Martin Luther King jr. and Malcolm X as a civil rights
campaigner (1960)
She received all sorts of prizes for her writing, for her poetry, for her activism throughout her life culminating in being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barrack Obama.
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"Still" in the title showing literal meaning she endured the difficulties and kept on rising no matter what people have did to her.
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