Still I Rise Flashcards
Opening stanza and metre within it
Broadly in trochaic metre (a type of falling metre) as she is being oppressed
“Bitter” and “twisted” - plosives . “down” / “trod” - negative force. Resistance to it.
In line “But still, like dust, I’ll rise”, the poem is in rising metre: turns negative into positive - extends metaphor / “dirt” → “dust”. “Still” - despite everything, still ongoing
Juxtaposition between her confidence and her treatment by others
“Sassiness”, “haughtiness” “Sexiness”
“Walk” /”laugh” “dance”
“Oil wells” “gold mines” “Diamonds at the meeting of my thighs”
Rhetorical questions pose a challenge to the reader “Does my sassiness upset you? / Why are you beset with gloom?” - proud of her “sassiness” -> spirit and confidence and sarcastically asks whether this is the reason the reader is “beset in gloom”
Compared to:
“Did you want to see me broken?” - past tense / metaphor
‘Bowed head and lowered eyes? - symbolic - subservience → link to slavery
“Shoulders falling down like teardrops,” - emotionally broken and crying
“weakened by soulful cries?”
All of these are in falling metre
“You may write me down in history” - object of the narrative rather than being given her own voice, “down” has connotations of being oppressed
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness” - literal and metaphorical
Escalating list of violent metaphors → link to slavery
Repetition (Anaphora) of “you may” emphasises the many negative ways she might be treated, but will overcome (Again - all in falling metre but not trochaic - don’t use these terms interchangeably).
