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Hadassah McGill

Ms. Camargo

English 2100-003

12 Feb. 2013

I’ve Got Diamonds

America has not always been “The Land of the Free!” At least not everyone had the

privilege in sharing that sense of pride and freedom that America portrayed. There was a time

not very long ago where specific races of people were demeaned and treated harshly or less than

equal. For example Jews and African-Americans and even women were mistreated in the past. In

some areas around the world, this type of harsh treatment is still taking place. Most cultures have

been treated so terribly that the thought of how their race was treated still lives on past the

history books. In fact, a new history is being made. The kind of history where an African-

American woman, above all things unheard of, exercises her voice and makes readers have no

choice but to listen. The great Maya Angelou, in her work entitled Still I Rise, sheds light on her

ancestor’s backgrounds and provides, in her own way, a criticism of the “established order”

through use of rhetorical questioning, simile and metaphor, and allusions to the past and present

situations she now faces.

At a time when the African-American society was put down, abused, ignored, and

mistreated, Maya Angelou finds her own way out by sharing the African-American woman’s

plight and her “rise” to greatness. She escapes the feelings of oppression from her people being

“[written] down in history… [and] trod in the very dirt” and she shares her feelings of stagnant

growth even after all the many years of “leaving behind nights of terror and fear” in her poem

Still I Rise. The tone in this piece exudes strength and confidence no matter what struggles one is

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faced with. Maya Angelou presents the reader with an inside perspective of how her life as an

African-American woman (no less) was transformed during and after the times of slavery. The

speaker poses a variety of open ended questions that she seemingly already knows the answers

to. The overwhelming sense of dignity the speaker possesses is confident, assuring, and uplifting

to any male or female figure and race. With this confidence comes a sense of pride in her culture,

her people, and herself. She begins to exude this confidence with the myriad of rhetorical

questions in the poem.

“Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom?… Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes?… Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don’t you take it awful hard ‘cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines diggin’ in my own back yard… Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise that I dance like

I’ve got diamonds at the meeting of my thighs?

All of these rhetorical questions bring about a sense of pride that had long before been defeated

in the African-American race. With these questions, Angelou is showing that, in all the struggles

of her people, you just cannot keep a good thing down. You can get “upset” and offended, but

she demonstrates that she possesses a quality or characteristic that she, not only as an African-

American but also as a woman, was for the longest time forbidden to show.

The speaker seems strong: stronger than her society wants her to feel since people are

used to seeing her “shoulders falling down like teardrop [and] weakened by [her] soulful cries”.

She seems confident: more confident than her society expects for her to feel. She has been

broken down, weakened, and hurt many times before, but no longer was this going to be the

image portrayed. She seems driven to put her “ancestor’s gifts” and talents on display, since for

so many years they were stifled and hidden. The African-American plight or the struggle of the

black race was captured by people not wanting to see them fight or talk back or speak up for

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themselves. “Superior” races hated to see blacks happy and successful so the confidence

possessed by the speaker was not taken lightly. The speaker asks, “does my haughtiness offend

you?” This was probably because she was more intelligent than one would care to appreciate.

The speaker then goes on to ask “does my sexiness upset you?” as if she is sure that no one is

expecting her to consider herself as beautiful or sexy because it is clear she doesn’t look like

everyone else and also because her race was trodden “in the very dirt”. “But still, like dust, I’ll

rise” and from the ashes that formed from the broken and bruised backs of African-Americans,

the black culture was able to rise to greatness. Her “ancestors” brought her dignity, gave her

reason to fight for something (dreams, hopes, and more) and with these things “[she] rise[s]”.

Angelou uses all these metaphors and similes to express how she has “rise[n]” from a

dark, desolate, and barren place; where her people, her race, were treated with such

“hatefulness”. Yet still, “out of the huts of history’s shame I rise”. The speaker says she is a

“black ocean, leaping and wide”. This not only is representative of the color of her skin, but also

it is also compared to the cast and endless possibilities her life holds and the “tide” and currents

represent how her struggles are widespread with every trial she faces, but she takes it and

“bear[s] the tide” and “still [she] rise[s]”. The use of similes in the poem represent the view of

African-Americans that was long suppressed and even the rights and riches that were stolen from

them.

The poem alludes to a place and time in our history when African-Americans were

thought to be an inferior race, and were treated as such. Historically, Blacks were beaten and

bruised, raped and murdered, sold as slaves and as property, and treated unequally and unfairly

all because white or Caucasian-Americans thought of themselves as a privileged race.

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Still I RiseBy Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history   With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt   But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom?   ’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells   Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,   With the certainty of tides,   Just like hopes springing high,   Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?   Bowed head and lowered eyes?   Shoulders falling down like teardrops,   Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?   Don't you take it awful hard ’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines   Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,   You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds   At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,   Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

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Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,   I am the dream and the hope of the slave.   I rise I rise   I rise.

Hadassah— I think you’re “on to” the literary devices in this poem and what the theme/central tension is, and your passion for the poem comes through in your writing. I know you might see a zillion comments here, but don’t let it get you down. You’ve actually done a good job getting started with this. I’m being a bit hard on you only to help you develop your paper to be a stricter New Critical explication, and to help you organize into a more concise explanation of the literary devices at work. I know you’re struggling with how to bring in the important historical factors while still sticking to a New Critical analysis, so if you want to make an appointment with me and get together and talk through it, we can, just let me know.

Comment 2: (regarding intro--continued from above) You can show these things (cultural and historical factors) through discussing the allusions, but you can’t use them as your general introduction. But if you “come in through the side door” as I suggest in the next comment, you can bring this in; you just have to use Angelou’s allusions as the “side door.” In addition, New Criticism doesn’t allow for the critic to consider the life or intentions of the author (see the PPT on New Criticism and the intentional fallacy). So you can talk about a “speaker” or “narrator,” but you can’t discuss the author’s life or intentions. I know this leaves out a lot of what you love about the poem but for a proper New Critical explication, you have to work around that. In addition, think about this: part of what makes this poem so wonderful is that it’s for anyone who’s been oppressed for a long time, through generations. It works for populations other than African Americans—in fact, really, someone who’s been abused for much of their life could relate to this poem, whether they are black or white or purple or female or male or whatever, right? So try to take what you know about Ms. Maya and HER struggles out of it, and think about the larger theme that is relevant across cultures and times. Maybe something like “Through the use of rhetorical questions and figurative language, “Still I Rise” explores the tensions between past oppression and present liberation for those who have been oppressed.” OR “explores the notion that even when one has been oppressed for many years, liberation is possible.” OR “illustrates that, although a person or a group of people who have been oppressed may face the expectation that they will remain as such, freedom and happiness are possible.”