A woman in a flowing dress stands in the ocean at sunset, arms outstretched, with a dramatic, colorful sky.

your response: “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou presents the central theme of challenging the focus of conformity by rising against the oppression of society to represent individuality. The poem directly addresses the conflict on how society degraded her individuality, but even in isolation, she refuses to fall. “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.” The stanza powerfully reinforces the use of tension through resilience even in the face of conformity. By setting a clear and confident tone expressed in the entirety of the poem, Angelou emphasizes the determination to stay one’s true self even when society disagrees. Her strive to prove the immense strength she held in the metaphor “I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide” compared her courageous resilience to the powerful current of the ocean. The symbolism held in this quote can also be seen as a sign of the refusal of oppression to promote individuality. The themes and literary devices combine to acknowledge the unstoppable independence against the conformity of societal standards. My morality aligns with Maya Angelou’s resistance to conformity, remaining just as powerful under modern society.Within our contemporary society, we are expected to follow social cues and fall under the pressure to conform rather than stand out. Even in our world today, society continues to judge and discriminate against defying social norms. The See more