Human Sprit in Angelou's "Still I Rise" and Harrison's "The Bright Lights of Sarajevo"
Submitted for GCSE English Language
The human spirit is a theorised component of human beings that is spiritual as opposed to physical, and mental as opposed to intellectual, and it includes our emotions, fears and passions. This essay seeks to examine how it is presented in ‘The Bright Lights of Sarajevo’ by Tony Harrison as the prevailing tendency to look for and create positivity even in the worst of circumstances, and the way it is similarly presented in ‘Still I Rise’ by Maya Angelou as the power of one’s ego and self-confidence.
‘The Bright Lights of Sarajevo’ is a poem that relates to the besieging of Sarajevo during the Bosnian civil war in 1992. It was written by Tony Harrison, who was sponsored by the Guardian to cover the conflict. It was, among others, published in the Guardian, intended to be read as news as well as poetry. It touches upon several key themes: war, and the impact of war on society; issues regarding ethnicity and race; and love holding out in a time of conflict.
The title of the poem would be found ironic by contemporary readers, who know about the darkness that Sarajevo had at the time been plunged into. However, the use of the adjective ‘bright’ evokes a fairly positive response in the reader; this could be seen as suggesting that there is still hope for the inhabitants of Sarajevo to form a similarly bright future in spite of the hardships they are presently facing.
It is clear from the language of the poem that it was written with the purpose of being news in poetic form. The enjambment and natural speech contribute to a commentary style that is very journalistic – the way in which the sentences are delivered are reminiscent of a news report. This observation in mind, we may further note that it is the poem’s rhyme that allows it to transcend from a monologue into a poem – into art. Furthermore, rhyme often causes a poem to become light-hearted, and this clashes slightly with the grim subject matter as the poet reminds the reader subtly that even in times of utmost despair, there is still joy and positivity to be found. Harrison hints, therefore, at the resilient optimism and unwavering hope that is reinforced with the content of the poem.
The lines follow a very simple rhyme scheme: the poet uses heroic couplets, meaning lines written in iambic pentameter and with rhyming couplets. This is the measure into which typically heroic poems and epics, such as the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Aenid, are translated in English (the ‘equivalent’ of the dactylic hexameter used in the original Latin. In this poem, their use is contrasted with the long sentences it’s written in, in that the long sentences slow the pace down, whilst the heroic couplets (and rhyming couplets generally) speed it up. This creates a tension in form between its poetic side and its news side. This contrast also shows the mindsets of the people in the poem, for whom the horror has become a regular way of life. They are so used to the constant fear and tension that it has become practically second-nature to them, and yet simultaneously, the danger is still there, and they have to be alert at all times.
The first stanza pays tribute specifically to the suffering of ordinary civilians. It alludes to a sense of perpetual danger, as well as ideas of toil and deprivation. The danger is shocking to the reader, who is likely reading the poem from a position of relative privilege, and the idea that these people must risk their lives, ‘often dodging snipers’, to do something as essential as getting food emphasises the lengths that the people of Sarajevo go to in order to sustain themselves and their families.
In addition to inexorably endangering their own lives daily, which undoubtedly requires tremendous mental effort, they must exert physical strain constantly. The adjective ‘hours’ is not a hyperbole – indeed, it may be an understatement when regarding the time it must take to go about the chores that are synonymous with their living conditions. Participles of action such as ‘queuing’, ‘struggling (up)’ and ‘dodging’ are used many times in this stanza, and this lexis adds emphasis to the wretchedness of the whole situation.
As well as the depiction of difficulty, toil and imperilment, Harrison paints a picture of deprivation and impoverishment. The fact that gas is ‘wheel[ed] home in prams’ appears to suggest that the canisters were, to them, as precious as children. The adjectives ‘precious meagre grams [of bread]’ accentuate the cherished nature of even fundamental necessities of life. Even procuring water requires arduous physical labour, and ‘struggling up sometimes eleven flights of stairs’.
The cohesive picture of what appears to be hopelessness that is painted in this stanza causes the reader to feel utmost respect for the Sarajevans who undergo all this strain, both mental and physical, just to maintain their existence. The poet switches to the second person, ‘you’d think’, and this stimulates the reader’s investment in the story. In a way, it challenges the reader’s idea of how desperate and disastrous the situation must be, but it sets up the contrast with the defiant resistance to the tough conditions that the Sarajevans show. This, then, is the power of the human spirit showcased in their strong-willed nature of the people of Sarajevo, and in particular, the youth. The nights of Sarajevo are not ‘totally devoid / of people walking streets’, but rather, young people are still going out to socialise. The poet encourages the reader to admire and be inspired by the resolve and courage of these defiant adolescents, and this is the strength and essence of the human spirit in this poem.
The second stanza opens with the noun phrase, ‘the young’, and this shows that they are a single homogenous group who are not against each other. The noun ‘stroller’ is repeated twice in this paragraph, and its alliteration in the phrase ‘stroller’s stride’ suggests that the young people are carefree and unhurried. This is because in the night, racial tensions are eliminated, as snipers are unable to differentiate between Muslims, Serb or Croat. This helps the poet to paint the human spirit as inclusive and embracing of all peoples regardless of their race. This ambiguity that reigns in the dark shows how it is indifferent to and unconcerned with ethnicity, and these ideas are emphasised in the inclusion of all three translations of bread, hjleb’, ‘hleb’, ‘kruh’, in the native tongues of those in the ‘race war’.
Structurally, this stanza continues the way one might expect a news report to: having first detailed the broad, general happenings in Sarajevo in the first stanza, the writer has now zoomed in and focussed on the broad social consequences. Towards the end of this stanza, and moving into the third, he zooms in and focusses on the unusual courtship rituals among the detritus of war. Doing this, and cutting from the background to the love story, he emphasises the ‘love conquers all’ message, and the overcoming force of the human spirit, to look for and create positives even in spite of the negatives that have become their living conditions. This is particularly emphasised on a broad scale in this stanza, via use of lots of darkness imagery, such as ‘black shapes’ and ‘unlit streets’. The irony, of course, is that the darkness offers them safety, and a chance to regain their identity, to become themselves rather than just a member of their ethnic group, a reversal on the classic idea of darkness taking away one’s identity, and being unsafe.
The ominous language that describes the elaborate choreography of the unusual courtship rituals, such as ‘flirtatious ploy’ and ‘tender radar’ implies some sort of military operation, a painful reflection on the reality of the setting. This ‘match-flare test’, as it is later described, by which they assess mutual attraction based on microtonal expressions in their voices in the absence of light, shows the lengths to which people will go to find love even when there is a war going on around them. Indeed, the powerful juxtaposition of love and war as the focus starts to shift increasingly to the love story is a great representation of human spirit as a benevolent and unrelenting force.
The penultimate stanza of the poem then, includes an eyewitness account of a budding romance. The boy ‘lead[s] her away from where they stand’, and the couple’s moving away from the site of a massacre could suggest a metaphorical hope for the future, in which the young finally are able to leave behind the tragedies of war.
The place where they stand – the backdrop of their flirting – is described as ‘two shell scars’, and this idea of scarring personifies the city, thereby emphasising the lasting impact of war. The poet also uses graphic, grotesque language to reinforce the tragedy that took place, and gory imagery such as ‘blood-dunked crusts’ and ‘broken dead’ indicates the horror of war by drawing attention to the innocent civilians who died waiting for their food. In this stanza especially, the poet uses enjambment to not only mimic the narration of a story, but also to show how intermingled people’s lives were with the terror of war, and the fact that they died at a ‘breadshop queue’, something that ought to be a normal daily or weekly chore, emphasises the dangers faced by those who died there.
Violent imagery and romantic imagery are continuously juxtaposed very closely in this stanza, even to the point of juxtaposition of rhyming couplets, like ‘bread’ and ‘dead’, and ‘mortar’ and ‘water’. In addition to the clear physical damage that has been perpetrated, there is also a suggested spiritual attack. The poet’s serene description of nature reinforced with the mention of the ‘fragments of the splintered Pleiades’, draws attention to the horrific violence that has been perpetrated by war. The Pleiades are a cluster of stars visible to the naked eye, and this reflects order; and therefore, the splintered stars show that that order has been broken, and implies that war has affected and even injured universal balance. This physical and spiritual destruction emphasises the extent of the resilience of love, and the resilience and toughness of the human spirit, that two young people can flirt and move on from horrors so recent that they are still being affected by them, that have still left observable, physical remnants as well as intangible, metaphysical consequences in the background of their pursuit of love and happiness with each other.
The mention of rain, and its eventual passing to reveal a sky filled with stars, is reminiscent of tears, and the eventual passing away of tears of sorrow and tragedy to give way to brighter eyes. In this way, the pathetic fallacy suggests hope for the future, even suggesting that the mere presence of tears and undesirable events inevitably and invariably gives way to better times.
The last stanza is the shortest, and shows the reader an idea of traditional love and tenderness. ‘He holds her hand’ is a symbol of unity and romance, and this more ‘normal’ behaviour juxtaposed with the violence of war, while admirable, is also poignant in the way that the backdrop of war has become normalised for them. Overall, it is a stanza that concludes the shift from negative to positive that has occurred over the course of the poem – and yet, we are reminded throughout that the scene is linked with the tragedy of war: they ‘share one coffee’, which has connotations of romance, but this is necessary because they need to ration; they are in a ‘candlelit café’, which is again romantic, but the candle can be the only light they can use to maintain the safety of the darkness; and of course, the completion of the tricolon of alliteration, the reminder that there is a ‘curfew’, a regulation, a military restriction as the result of the chaos around them. And so at the conclusion of the poem, we have an image of hope, hope for a civilian life returning to normalcy and events turning over for the better, which reinforces the poem’s message re the human spirit: an unbending and unyielding refusal to be beaten, but to instead always default in the most pragmatic way possible towards optimism.
Another poem that presents a strong message concerning the human spirit is ‘Still I Rise’ by Maya Angelou, an African-American poet who wrote extensively about issues of racism against the black community in America. Like ‘The Bright Lights of Sarajevo’ (henceforth referred to as just Sarajevo), it explores various themes, including but not limited to, racism, discrimination, slavery and resilience.
Its title, ‘‘Still I Rise’’, is a concise summary of Angelou’s self-proclaimed capacity to withstand the adverse conditions that arise as a result of her predicament of being a black woman in a time when this was not a desirable position to be in. ‘Still’ here means ‘in spite of’, ‘all the same’; and ‘rise’ refers to her irrepressible nature, resilience, and sturdy moral superiority. In and of itself, the title is a fantastic representation of how Angelou presents the human spirit: the title essentially amounts to ‘Despite all of the ordeals I’ve had to suffer for being a black woman in an unenlightened time, I remain strong and unaffected, and have even become a better person’. It is a similar message to the one presented in ‘Sarajevo’, with emphasis on the toughness and resilience of her own human spirit.
She opens the first stanza with ‘you’, and continually uses this direct address, which creates a confrontational tone. The ‘you’ refers to the presumably white, male oppressor and generally to all of her denigrators and antagonists. However, the second-personal informal personal pronoun may be used ubiquitously and refer to people in general: in this way, Angelou appears to be considering her haters and humanity broadly to be equivalent to each other, thereby setting up a narrative of her versus the world. The modal verb ‘may’, emphasises the power of her oppressors, the fact that they can do these things and commit their atrocities and get away with it, and the anaphora of this phrase reiterates it. The sound patterning is harsh and aggressive with the repeated ‘t’ sounds and assonance of sharp ‘i’ sounds in ‘bitter, twisted lies’. This helps to further the point of the first stanza, to relate to a turbulent past filled with bitter falsehoods, a past in which African Americans were treated like ‘dirt’, undeserving of respect. The verb ‘trod’, in particular, shows how her oppressors metaphorically overpower her community and attempt to ensure that they cannot rise in society. In spite of this however, she and her community overcome the challenges they face like ‘dust’, which is insignificant and yet universal and pervasive. The idea of dust also links to her nature – her strength and resilient nature are both deeply rooted in her free-spirited temperament. Moreover, the dust could be interpreted as a biblical reference: God created humans from dust, and Angelou’s simile could be interpreted as an assertion of her own humanity. The stanza ends with the phrase ‘I’ll rise’, which becomes a mantra in the poem, which sets a defiant and positive tone, a fantastic rendering of the human spirit – rather than respond with bitterness and gloom to the treatment of her ancestors, her community and herself, Angelou chooses to go for this zestful and defiant tone that creates an underlying positive and inspiring message of hope for its readers.
The second stanza confronts her oppressors with a much lighter, cheekier tone, asking why they are upset with Angelou’s cheerful attitude. The double rhetorical questions – ‘Does my sassiness upset you? // Why are you beset with gloom?’ – contribute to a sarcastic and pugnacious tone, and the noun ‘sassiness’ also indicates that she is bold and confident. The way one walks can be seen as a sign of one’s self-esteem and self-image, and Angelou compares the way she walks as having ‘oil wells pumping in my living room’. Oil wells are a symbol of wealth, so her choice of language here appears to imply that her confidence and self-image are her wealth, and that she has a figurative as opposed to literal abundance of wealth that her oppressors can never know. The message about the human spirit here is evidently one of absolute self-confidence: it is better to be happy in your own skin and indifferent to the opinions of those around you than to be insecure and craving of others’ praise.
In the third stanza, Angelou uses similes to associate herself with natural phenomena that cannot be controlled by any man, and shows that she, therefore, cannot be controlled by her oppressors. The reference to nature is a reminder of what is essentially the predictability of life – of light dispelling darkness, of the sun rising every day in the morning. The metaphor reflects her belief that she can triumph over whatever life puts her through. The last line of this stanza, her mantra repeated again – ‘Still I’ll rise’ – is shorter than the others in the stanza, and this makes it stand out so she can boldly remake her statement that she is unequivocally sure of. Her human spirit is again shown as her sheer courageousness and confidence, her ability to be absolutely certain of herself and her own consistency in the face of adversity.
The next stanza opens as the second stanza did, with a taunting rhetorical question, ‘Did you want to see me broken?’. The verb ‘want’ shows the emphasis on the desires of her oppressors. In this stanza she questions her oppressors, and interrogates them as to why they want to shatter the black community’s self-image. She uses imagery of a subdued and anguished black population, ‘bowed head and lowered eyes’. The rhetorical questions essentially function as accusations, specifically against their desires to crush her human spirit, and their desires for her to fail. She is tauntingly curious as to their motives, and wonders why her pride is upsetting to them. She continues on in the next stanza, ‘Does my haughtiness offend you?’, and the use of the noun ‘haughtiness’ as opposed to say ‘pride’ or ‘confidence’ is a further mockery to her oppressors, as she chose to go with a word with negative connotations of arrogance and vanity rather than positive ones, which is ironic because that is how they view her. She emphasises again that she doesn’t care about her lack of material wealth, because she is rich in human spirit, meaning that she cannot be defeated. She laughs like she has ‘gold mines diggin’ in my own backyard’. The use of the personal possessive pronoun ‘own’ is a way of making fun of those who do, and shows her absolute confidence and happiness even in spite of the absurdity of the statement that she might have gold mines or material wealth.
The sixth stanza utilises violent verbs, like ‘shoot’, ‘cut’, and ‘kill’, and the anaphora demonstrates that whatever her oppressors might do to her, whether it be racial slurs, physical violence or hate speeches, she would still rise over their cruelty. She breaks this ascending tricolon, disregards it even, by repeating her mantra and claiming that she will rise above it. She has elevated, however, from the first stanza where she compared herself to dust, to air. The imagery changes therefore, from dust being close to the ground, to air which is omnipresent in the environment, at the highest levels, and this shows that her self-confidence is dramatically on the increase over the course of the poem. This shows that the human spirit can also be about constant self-improvement, as long as it is improvement in your own eyes rather than anyone else’s.
The next stanza focusses on her sexuality as a woman. She suggests with yet another rhetorical question, ‘Does my sexiness upset you?’, that her oppressors are envious of her attractiveness, and verbalizes yet more absolute self-confidence that in spite of difficulties and problems, she will continue to be attractive. The verb ‘dance’ suggests still more that she is happy with herself and who she is, and she feels like she can be proud of her body and flaunt it the way other women might flaunt their ‘diamonds’.
The final two stanzas are structurally different to those preceding it. The unexpected shift in stanza length could be a reference to the unexpectedness of Angelou’s own reaction to the situation that she was born and put into, and a reference to her refusal to conform to ‘normal’ black stereotypes, and her refusal to give in to her oppressors. As well as this, the rhyme scheme shifts from ABCB to ABABCC, and finally to ABABCCAAA, building up towards the climax of the poem.
The eighth stanza alludes to the depth of injustice that the African community has experienced and been experiencing with the alliteration of ‘huts of history’s shame’. This refers to the terrible living conditions Angelou’s ancestors experienced as slaves, and the continued misery inflected upon them and their descendants, all the way down to Angelou’s own generation. However, after detailing each of the evils of the past, she asserts ‘I rise’, to illustrate these evils finally being overcome, knowing that she won’t be chained to their past – this is also shown in the sudden change from the future to the present tense of the mantra, that it is no longer something she is hoping for, but something that is happening. The metaphor of ‘black ocean’ gives a vivid impression of an ocean of people, expanding and multiplying, and this is furthered by the assonance of ‘swelling and welling’, and of course, that she is proud and celebratory of her being black.
In this stanza and the last one, she is clearly no longer addressing the oppressor, she stops with the rhetorical questions and the taunting tone, and becomes more assertive. When she does this, she moves from a quatrain to a sestet, which shows how by disregarding and not caring for her oppressors, she is able to break free from the constraints of a racist society.
The final stanza features the alliteration in ‘gifts that my ancestors gave’, which suggests the strength she derives from the resilience of her ancestors, and the noun gifts shows that she has pride in her heritage. She asserts herself as the embodiment of her ancestors’ wishes, ‘I am the dream and the hope of the slave’, meaning that she considers herself to be the first in her line of ancestry to have earned the freedom that they each longed for. The refrain, ‘I rise’, continually progresses and overcomes the barriers of a racist society, proving once and for all that the human spirit is capable of anything.
In conclusion then, both poems present a triumphalist message about the human spirit, and what it means to be truly human. In ‘The Bright Lights of Sarajevo’, human spirit was presented by Harrison for the most part as the ability of individuals and groups to face the uncertainty of the future and the chaos of the present with optimism, presented through celebration of the love a younger generation. This tendency of humans to err towards a more optimistic outlook is a shared theme of both poems, and ‘Still I Rise’ shows how not only does the positivity help people to be stronger mentally, but that that positivity and self-confidence is the key to objective and observable results in achieving one’s goals, illustrated with her personal triumph over the adversity Angelou faced.