Still I Rise By Maya Angelou

As seen throughout the play, Mama expresses concern for the well-being of her family, and is most effective whenever she expresses concern for Travis. Lena Younger expresses this concern when Walter proposes his idea to open a liquor store to help his family, by first investing with the money that comes from the insurance check. Lena immediately discredits the idea, using arguments saying that Walter’s priority isn’t family. One can recall that Lena’s late husband was described as a hard worker, with family at the center of everything he did. Not only that, but Lena, being older and living differently than she is now, has grown up with different sets of hardships and therefore values. Both contribute to her ideals revolving around being there for family, of which don’t include a get-rich-quick-scheme. This is seen when Lena reveals that she put a down payment for a house, and giving her reasoning behind it. Lena wants to get a newer house, that allows them to live comfortably, and the amenities that contribute to this are a bedroom for Travis and a garden for herself. The garden refers back to the little plant Lena has in the kitchen. Like her plant, it is small and worn, but is representative of the hope within her. The plant would then transform into a garden, demonstrating that Lena has bounties of hope and is flourishing with the opportunity to grow her security for her family and herself. Another important thing to note is that Lena never imposes her children with ideas about the world. Although at times she tries to wane them off certain ideas, these ideas pertaining to her hardships and religious beliefs, she generally is very accepting of what her children do. She lets them have their own dreams and goals, seen when she tells Walter what she wants him to do with the check, which shows the importance of family to her in another

This spirit of desire for change echoes throughout the play. Lena (Mama) buys a house in Clybourne Park, a white neighborhood, so that her grandson and the baby that Ruth is expecting can grow up in a place where they will not be tempted to play in the street with dead rats. A neighbor comments, "I bet by this time next month y'all's names will have been in the papers plenty - 'NEGROES INVADE CLYBOURNE PARK - BOMBED!'"

When she does speak to others, her father is skeptical of what she has said. This is evident on their bus ride to Bend when she engages in a harmless conversation with the women sitting next to her. Her father tells her “you were talking to that lady sitting next to you. She is watching us. What did you tell her?”

In an excerpt from her novel I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings called “Graduation,” Maya Angelou narrates the anticipation surrounding graduation in her small town of Stamps, Alabama. Angelou effectively contrives noteworthy differences between paragraphs 1 through 5 and 6 through 10 through the use of emotional and descriptive diction, powerfully bold comparisons, and a shift in perspective in order to instill pride and dignity in Angelou and her race despite the era’s highlighted social injustices which she endures.

Lena Younger doesn’t have materialistic things and good wealth but, she walks high, displays pride, and carries herself. Her children’s are her pride and joy and would do anything for her children’s. With no important dreams of her own, for even her dream of having a house is interested only by her aspiration to make living conditions better for her family. She says, upon receiving the $10,000 insurance check from her husband death. I think her American Dream is to have a house so, her family can live in a better environment. Lena is belittling by some of her family member because they want to use the money for something else. “Big Walter used to say, he’d get right wet in the eyes sometimes, lean his head back with the water standing in his eyes and say, "Seem like God didn’t see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams but He did give us children to make them dreams seem worthwhile." He stating that he makes sacrifices for his family even though he has dreams for himself.

Perfection is impossible, but Barack Obama consolidates the concept that imperfection is acceptable as long as there is improvement along the way. Obama describes his visions for America in his speech “A More Perfect Union” with diction, paradox, and syntax by explaining why there needs to be improvements regarding racism. Maya Angelou shares a personal anecdote in her essay “Graduation” that ties to Obama’s vision. With parallelism and repetition it involves a doubt in her race, but ends in an ultimate revelation of pride. Obama and Angelou’s visions are comparable in their beliefs that there is an achievable need to improve equality between blacks and whites. This can be contradicted by the past history

When Lena visits Jim in Lincoln, he does not recognize her at first. Then, seeking to understand what made her unrecognizable, he ponders if “perhaps it’s [Lena’s] clothes that make the difference,” emphasizing the connection of her growth and success to her tailored style (171). Lena “knew... what people looked well in” and was able to boost her clients confidence and success (179).

They were very confused as to why she was talking like that and her response was, “‘It’s not necessary to tell all you know. It’s not ladylike-in the second place, folks don’t like to have somebody around knowin’ more than they do. It aggravates ‘em. You’re not gonna change any of them by talkin’ right, they’ve got to want to learn themselves, and when they don’t want to learn there ’s nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut

(Hansberry, 69) She still remembers the furnishings of the apartment being "selected with care and love and even hope" (Hansberry, 5). As time passed, Lena's dream of owning her own home dwindled away into an unlikely hope. A symbol of the dream's small but continued existence was Lena’s plant. Although the plant symbolises a multiplicity of themes in the play one example is its representation of the withering of the dream as a result of the denial of a life outside the apartment. The promise of ten thousand dollars is symbolised as the sunlight to keep the possibility of both things alive. The irony for Lena was that the chance for her dream came through the death of her husband. She is conflicted about what to do with the money and insulted at the assignment of any dollar amount for the life of her husband. “Ten thousand dollars they give you. Ten-thousand-dollars!” (Hansberry, 100). As Asagai points out and Lena would agree, it is an unsettling reality to live "in a house - in a world - where all dreams, good or bad, must depend on the death of a man" (Hansberry, 186). She sees the money as an insult to the value of Big Walter's life. Also, she is offended by the change in the African American mindset where "freedom used to be life - now it's money" (Hansberry, 107). Lena is the product of a different generation than the rest of the family and therefore accustomed to different kinds of injustices and racism. Lena sees the house as something she can pass on to later generations. Since she has been denied many things in life, she recognizes the larger meaning of everything: "'seem like God didn't see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams - but He did give us children to make them dreams seem worthwhile'" (Hansberry,

Majority of African American women get judged on the day to day basis. When scrolling through social media there will be large amounts of individuals who will bully or even belittle a colored female because of the natural kinks of her hair, her sense of fashion, the full shaped curves of her body, and the color of her skin . The poem “Still I Rise” by the well-known poet, Maya Angelou, specifically describes the reasons why she had so much confidence; even if she were to be judged by her appearances and mindset. This poem is about embracing females, but it mainly introduces similar life situations that many African American women have experienced. The symbols and point of view that Angelou specifically added in her poem made her readers realize that there are many meanings to this poem.

As the daughters of a washerwoman and a gaolbird, Lil and Else Kelvey, are shunned in their community and are forced to live a solitary life looking in from the sidelines. When Isabel, the eldest Burnell child, and her friends take to mocking the two Kelveys about taking after their mother's occupation of being a servant one of the other children, “Emmie [swallows] in a very meaning way and [nods] to Isabel as she’d seen her mother do”(3). They do this to further make Lil and Else feel isolated from everyone else, taking after their parents gestures and mannerisms towards them as if to try and further mock and solidify that they are beneath them. The Burnells, being wealthy and high class, however, are shown to be well accepted in the community,

Lena Younger’s thinking has been limited by discrimination (Washington 113). Mama grew up in a racist American society forcing her to think in a way very different from her children’s. She was more “worried about not being lynched and getting to the North if [she] could and how to stay alive and still have a pinch of dignity too…” (Hansberry 62). These circumstances “narrow[ed] her perspective and restrict[ed] her beliefs about what a black person could reasonably expect to achieve in American society.” (Washington 113). Her and Beneatha both experienced gender inequality and is held back by the female stereotype. A woman is expected get married and should be more concerned with her family than her education. Lena could only dream about becoming

In the story the hardships Lena face such as being lonely in the city and having difficulty living as a native person in the city and the line “Nobody wanted them there” shows us that and these challenging experiences helped Lena realise that what she thought of her sense of self as living in the city was completely incorrect and she started to come to terms with that when she came back to the reserve and remising about her life at the reserve. People go through many changes in their life making them change their sense of

In “The Story of an Hour” and the poem “Still I Rise” Kate Chopin and Maya Angelou have explored the theme of oppression in a variety of different ways. “The Story of an Hour” is a short story based around how dramatically things can change within the space of an hour and how this can affect your life in the short period of time. Within the hour Mr Mallard is presumed dead in a railroad disaster, resulting in Mrs Mallard short lived ‘freedom’ after years of being oppressed, before soon learning that her husband is not dead as she encounters him. This shock triggers an ongoing heart problem and Mrs Mallard is soon confirmed dead. “Still I Rise” is a poem based around Maya Angelou and how she will overcome challenges that are thrown at her.

In vignette number two we see this story from Lena’s perspective. Lena is a chinese immigrants daughter. In this part of the story Lena is still A