Maya Angelou Still I Rise

Deemed as one of the most prolific works of poetry, Still I Rise certainly impressed me and surpassed all of my expectations. Still I Rise is such an inspirational and motivational text in that it empowers its audience to think about the morality of certain beliefs in society as well as empower those who are weak and vulnerable in society. Still I Rise reinforces the idea that racial prejudice is still prevalent in the world we live in today. This poem is exceedingly special and memorable due to the fact that there is a key valuable message from which individuals, from all walks of life, can certainly benefit from. During this response, I will be discussing what I deem to be interesting aspects of the text which include: the portrayal of the
Maya Angelou’s style is very intriguing and captivating due to her usage of tone. Maya Angelou was an American Civil Rights Activist, born in St Louis, Missouri, who lived through the Jim Crow Era - which, as mentioned before, was a critical period in terms of the rise of racial segregation in the United States. Unlike the majority of her kind, Angelou was extremely privileged - becoming a successful actress, author and poet. Although she is privileged and considerably well-off in her own personal endeavors, she is fully aware of the atrocity and inhumanity with which her fellow folk are being treated with on a daily basis. In the poem, she decants and expresses her frustration, but she does so with great subtlety and restraint. Although she uses a confrontational tone (by using the pronoun ‘you’) towards white people (which is the intended audience of the poem), she does not personally attack them in any way. She simply poses rhetorical questions which make the audience re-evaluate their way of thinking and cause them to truly see that their beliefs are founded upon hatred and false accusations. Aside from using a confrontational tone, Angelou also makes use of a perseverant tone which, through close analysis, entails a valuable message for people from all walks of life and, more importantly, the black folk who suffer from racial discrimination. “...I rise..”
Angelou, through this empowering poem, has insightfully discussed and surely raised awareness of the social issue of racial prejudice - which is, in fact, sadly still present in our world. In furtherance to this, Angelou has also been able to convince us that not only is racial prejudice driven by corrupt ideals and beliefs but rather it is rooted deeply in hatred and jealousy. During the era in which Angelou lived in, there were considerably few advocates and activists for people who were treated with such cruelty all due to their race. And as outlined in Angelou’s poem, the social situation during the Jim Crow Era was appalling. In today’s society, the social situation regarding issues of racial prejudice has certainly improved with the increased number of advocates and social rights movements for those treated with inferiority and inhumanity. It has improved so much that a large number of coloured people have taken positions of governance, with the current President of the United States (Barack Obama) being an African-American and Social Rights Activist himself. Similar to critically acclaimed literary authors such as, Alice Walker and Dennis Brutus (‘The Colour Purple’ and ‘Somehow We Survive’) Angelou is a Social Rights Activist who possessed a genuine intent to make a change and difference in society. Perhaps, through this poem, Angelou is trying to