Comparison of Still I Rise and Realities of a Black Woman
Compare and Contrast the poems Still I Rise By Maya Angelou and Of
course when they ask about the Realities of black women by Grace
Nichols.
'Still I Rise' written by Maya Angelou and 'Of course when they ask
about the "Realities" of black woman' written by Grace Nichols, are
the two poems that I will be comparing and writing about. These poems
are expressing the opinions of how white people would like to see or
how they see black women.
I understand that the word culture means a wide range of ideas,
knowledge and beliefs. That is usually shared between the people of a
country, place, race, group or religion. The word Culture can also
mean a way of life, or set of every day activities, for example a
Muslim will worship five times a day. I also understand that with in
one culture it is possible to have many different cultures.
Both poems are from a different culture to my own. The poems and poets
come from the same culture, which is black. Grace Nichols originally
came from Guyana and Maya Angelou originally came from Missouri. Both
poets are black each poem suggests this in its own individual way as
in the poem "Still I Rise" the poet Maya Angelou uses the word
"Slaves", and in the past slaves have usually been referred to as
black people. In the poem "Of course when they ask about the
'Realities' of black women" the poet Grace Nichols uses "I like to see
we black women", This suggests that she is not just writing about
black women and that she is a black woman herself as she changes her
language from "I" to "we".
The poem "Still I rise" by Maya Angelou is mainly about one black
woman. In the poem it is saying about a black woman being t...
... middle of paper ...
...propriately. The line which
didn't work for me was "I am the dream and hope of the slave" this is
because when this poem was written there would have been less slavery
and I do not believe that she is the dream of the slave. The rest I
very much like.
Grace's poem confused me and some part did not make any sense to me so
I found it very hard too follow in what was being said. This poem has
a lot of depth. I think it is not straight to the point, this to gives
the impression that Grace may still fear to speak about her past. The
structure and shape of the poem I didn't like not like. To me it
looked as thou no time had been taken was a rush and burst of thought
all at once.
Over all I preferred Maya Angelou's poem "Still I Rise2 I think that
she is a very strong black feminist writer. I hope that in the future
we will be looking at more of her work.
Words: Were the words in this poem difficult or easy to understand? Was there any word or phrase that was powerful to you?
The poem told the story of a man who is inhibited by language, and has never quite had the ability to articulate his thoughts and feeling through words. It is said that his family members have tried
This shows that you are constantly affected by the ones you love and have loved. This poem focuses on the theme of love and its influence on your life and body,
In this stanza there is a question asked to the question reveals that the girl is puzzled about the lord is after her. This suggests that she is aware that he has different motives rather than love and romance. This also shows that she knows the compliment is false and just a way of seducing her into bed.
Stanzas one and two of the poem are full of imagery. The first stanza sets the scene for the poem “in a kingdom by the sea” (Poe 609) which makes you feel as if the story is going to have a “romantic” (Overview) feel to it. Then Annabel Lee comes into the story with “no other thought than to love and be loved by me” (Poe 609); This sentence is full of imagery in the sense that it makes you feel the immense capacity of love Annabel Lee had for the speaker if that was her only thought. In the second stanza the imagery takes a turn that shifts from loving and inviting to pain; The love between Annabel and the speaker was so strong that
Even though she was a slave, that didn’t stop her from her doing what she had
The poem says that "since feeling is first" (line 1) the one who pays attention to the meaning of things will never truly embrace. The poem states that it is better to be a fool, or to live by emotions while one is young. The narrator declares that his "blood approves" (line 7) showing that his heart approves of living by feeling, and that the fate of feeling enjoyment is better than one of "wisdom" (line 9) or learning. He tells his "lady" (line 10) not to cry, showing that he is speaking to her. He believes that she can make him feel better than anything he could think of, because her "eyelids" (line 12) say that they are "for each other" (line 13). Then, after all she's said and thought, his "lady" forgets the seriousness of thought and leans into the narrator's arms because life is not a "paragraph" (line 15), meaning that life is brief. The last line in the poem is a statement which means that death is no small thi...
...sed society with religious overtones throughout the poem, as though religion and God are placing pressure on her. The is a very deep poem that can be taken in may ways depending on the readers stature yet one thing is certain; this poem speaks on Woman’s Identity.
Deborah Gray White’s Ar’n’t I a Woman? details the grueling experiences of the African American female slaves on Southern plantations. White resented the fact that African American women were nearly invisible throughout historical text, because many historians failed to see them as important contributors to America’s social, economic, or political development (3). Despite limited historical sources, she was determined to establish the African American woman as an intricate part of American history, and thus, White first published her novel in 1985. However, the novel has since been revised to include newly revealed sources that have been worked into the novel. Ar’n’t I a Woman? presents African American females’ struggle with race and gender through the years of slavery and Reconstruction. The novel also depicts the courage behind the female slave resistance to the sexual, racial, and psychological subjugation they faced at the hands of slave masters and their wives. The study argues that “slave women were not submissive, subordinate, or prudish and that they were not expected to be (22).” Essentially, White declares the unique and complex nature of the prejudices endured by African American females, and contends that the oppression of their community were unlike those of the black male or white female communities.
Verbs play an important role in understanding the poem. It starts out in present tense with words such as "holds" "push" "feel" "engenders" and they shift at the end towards past tense ...
The first three verses are about other people and the repition is to give it atmosphere.
The first language feature we come across is the repetition of the words ‘out of’ and ‘into’. The phrases being repeated help to link past and present. The first stanza repeats ‘Out of…’ This talks about Grace’s ancestry, i.e. coming out of before her time. The second and third stanza ‘Into…’ is about her life and her past. Grace lived in the Caribbean and moved to England so the ‘into’ refers to her life experiences.
to the point. After re-reading this poem and many more, I interpret it as an expression of the human experiences having
On line 16 Bishop uses a long hyphen sara to pause before she breaks down and says “¬¬–̶ Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture/”. She is remembering the qualities of the lover she lost. On line 17 when Bishop uses the present tense words “I love…” as if admitting that she still loves the person she lost. Then again as followed on line 17 “…I shan’t have lied. It’s evident”. She admits that she lied in her poem. As mentioned before the thesis repeats in line 18 of the last quatrain stanza but this time uses an extra word, “too”. The word “too” actually means that losing is “not so easy” as she had believed it was at the beginning of the poem. The use of enjambment throughout the poem goes beyond the literal meaning. Bishop’s use of enjambment within the lines interpret that when one loses someone it is not the end of that pain but rather that the pain will always be present and what matters is how one person copes with that pain and accepts the fact that one will always lose. There is much resistance in Bishop’s words from the beginning of the poem when she uses the word “master” as if having control and then switches to the opposing word “disaster” as if out of control. The use of Bishops words at the beginning of the poem refers to her earlier years when she lost her father when she was eight months old which was not so hard
understand the points that Milton was trying to get across. An intricate poem can often be