Still I Rise

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1977

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

Dust

Angelou uses the image of dust to symbolize resilience. Being “trod” (Line 3) into the dirt suggests the image of a funeral or burial ceremony; the speaker refuses to be buried, and, instead, becomes like “dust” (Line 4). The dust is also a biblical reference; the Bible describes how people are created from dust and will return to dust. With this image, Angelou alludes to the spiritual salvation that offers many people a sense of relief from earthly suffering. Finally, though dust is insubstantial, dust has the power to irritate and to cause problems. In six stanzas of the poem, the speaker becomes this metaphorical irritant, choosing deliberately to upset the target of their questions.

Natural Resources

In stanzas two, five, and seven, the speaker equates their self to valuable natural resources. The speaker exclaims that they walks as if they have “ oil wells” (Line 7), laughs as if they have “gold mines” (Line 19), and dances as if they have “diamonds” (Line 27) between their legs. These comparisons subvert the objectification that they, and other Black people, experience. By saying that their physical body and self-esteem are worth more than materials, they dismiss the oppressive system’s attempts to define and limit Black people. They attribute the negative reactions of the poem’s audience to the audience’s own racist expectations surrounding the behavior of Black people.

The Ocean

Angelou uses the image of the ocean to represent the entirety of the Black experience, past and present. On one hand, the ocean recalls the history of the transatlantic slave trade, where enslaved Africans were brought to America across the ocean. From this perspective, the water becomes a symbol of trauma, death, and the loss of identity and history. On the other hand, however, the ocean’s waters recall the spiritual and healing quality of a baptism.

Like the speaker, the ocean itself is always in motion. In the speaker’s description, the ocean is alive thanks to the use of personification, or the giving of human characteristics to non-human objects or beings. When the speaker describes the ocean as “leaping” (Line 33), the speaker draws a comparison between the power of the ocean and the power of an individual’s own body. The speaker becomes the “black ocean” (Line 33) as a way of rising “[u]p from a past that’s rooted in pain” (Line 31). The qualifier “black” emphasizes the speaker’s pride in their identity; they are not denying the trauma that comes with their identity, but drawing attention to what it means to overcome that trauma.

Angelou uses the symbol of the ocean to contain the complexity of both her individual experience and the collective Black American experience. The speaker’s word choice communicates the complexity of personal experience that is both positive and negative. The ocean is “[w]elling and swelling” (Line 34), and while “welling” functions as a synonym for rising, it also recalls the image of tears welling up while one is crying. “Swelling” could describe an injury, while also describing a rising tide.