Themes and message

Resilience

The main theme of Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise” is resilience in the face of adversity. This resilience is expressed right from the phrase used in the title, which is repeated several times in the poem itself. The speaker of the poem directly addresses her oppressor to tell them that despite their efforts to tear her down, she will remain resilient and triumphant: “Still I’ll rise” (l. 12). In particular, the poem explores the resilience of black women in the face of the systematic oppression of a society that values whiteness and harms people of color.

In the poem, the speaker gives examples of different ways in which her oppressor tries to abuse and discount her. She mentions the re-writing of history to promote false narratives that celebrate whiteness and debase blackness: “You may write me down in history / With your bitter, twisted lies,” (ll. 1-2). She also mentions the different ways in which she receives abuse: “You may sh...