Maya Angelou free essay sample

This poem is written with Maya Angelou herself as the speaker. She is speaking to her audience of oppressors about how she has overcome racism, criticism, sexism, and personal obstacles in her life with pride and grace. This poem is historically rooted with the mentions of slavery, a â€Å"past of pain,† and â€Å"gifts of ancestors,† however she is speaking in the present having overcome all of the hardships of her past and embarking on the rest of her journey with the knowledge that she is a strong African American woman. Still I Rise is about overcoming oppression with grace and pride, having no sympathy for the oppressors and giving to validity to the reasons for oppression. There is rhyme every other line for most of the poem that immediately guides the reader through the poem. The phrases â€Å"I rise† and â€Å"Still I rise† are used repetetively throughout the poem to show that the speaker continues to overcome each situation of oppression and each oppressor. We will write a custom essay sample on Maya Angelou or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Imagery is dominant in this poem, especially after Angelou questions her oppressors. She gives the us images like â€Å"I walk like I’ve got oil wells /Pumping in my living room† and â€Å"Shoulders falling down like teardrops† and † I dance like I’ve got diamonds/ At the meeting of my thighs. † There is also the repeating image of air and dust rising. Much of her imagery is conveyed through similes and metaphors. This usuage of figurative languages gives us a very clear picture of what Angelou means and usually conveys a strong emotion. For example, when Angelou says â€Å"Shoulders falling down like teardrops,† we get an image of drooping shoulders (like the shape of a tear) and the tear itself is immediately associated with sadness. The two of these combined makes the images even stronger. The poem is more a narrative than anything else because Angelou interacts with her audience as she talks about the highs and lows of her life and history. The main symbol throughout the poem is that of rising dust. For dust to rise, it must be unsettled from the ground in some way and then forms a dust cloud. But once the dust has been unsettled from the ground, it can leave and RISE. This can be applied to Angelou’s overcome of the obstacles and her oppressors on the â€Å"ground† and rising above them all, unsettling and challenging the oppression. This poem has a very certain seriousness to it, but Angelou brings in her pride as an African American woman and injects playful images into the poem when questioning her oppressors. The stanzas that have questions show the direct relationship between the speaker and the audience, Angelou and her oppressors, and allows the reader to put themselves in the heat of the discussion and in the heart of the poem. The tone is one of sureness, pride, and grace. This online analysis says that the â€Å"you† that the poem is speaking to is the white race and that the â€Å"I† is the black race. This analysis says that the poem is a discussion between black and white, where the black, with Maya Angelou speaking, is taking pride in her heritage and what she has come from and intimidating the white race. This analysis says that â€Å"Maya is pretentiously assuring the audience that she will ‘rise† to any occasion and her color won’t hold her back. † After reading this analysis, I agree with the â€Å"you† being the white race. I thought before that the â€Å"you† had been specific to her own life, but this interpretation makes sense with the multiple references to slavery.

Legal Canadian Smoking Age by Province and Territory

Legal Canadian Smoking Age by Province and Territory The legal smoking age in Canada is the age at which a person is allowed to buy tobacco products, including cigarettes. The legal smoking age in Canada is set by each province and territory in Canada. Buying tobacco is split more or less evenly between age 18 and age 19 across Canadas provinces and territories: Legal Smoking Age in the Provinces and Territories of Canada   Alberta - 18British Columbia - 19Manitoba - 18New Brunswick - 19Newfoundland and Labrador - 19Northwest Territories - 18Nova Scotia - 19Nunavut - 18Ontario - 19Prince Edward Island - 19Quebec - 18Saskatchewan - 18Yukon Territory - 18 Selling tobacco is tightly regulated in most areas. In Ontario, for instance, the seller, whose age is not regulated, must request identification from any person who appears to be younger than 25 years old, and the seller must determine that the prospective buyer is at least 19 years old before selling tobacco products to that person. Smoking Is Banned in Indoor Public Spaces As of 2010, all territories and provinces and the federal government have enacted relatively consistent legislation banning public smoking in their jurisdictions. The legislation bans smoking in indoor public spaces and workplaces such as restaurants, bars, and casinos. The federal governments ban applies to federal workplaces and to federally regulated businesses such as airports. There is growing support for raising the minimum legal smoking age to 21  across the country to make access to tobacco more difficult and tamp down tobacco-related illness and deaths.  About 37,000 people die in Canada every year from a smoking-related illness. The Movement to Raise Legal Smoking Age to 21 The federal government suggested in early 2017 moving the legal smoking age to 21. The  idea of raising the minimum smoking age was put forward in a Health Canada paper considering ways to reach a 5 percent national smoking rate by 2035. In 2017, it stood at 13 percent. The federal government is reportedly not ruling out the possibility of raising the minimum smoking age to 21. The intent would be to try and reduce the number of young people picking up the habit. Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott said,  It’s time to push the envelope. What are those next steps? We’ve put out some bold ideas, things like raising the age of access. Things like putting restrictions in terms of multiperson dwellings. We want to hear what Canadians think about those [ideas].† Cancer Society Supports Raising the Minimum Age The  Canadian Cancer Society  says it  supports the idea of setting a federal smoking age of 21. Rob Cunningham, a senior policy analyst with the society, says he believes raising the smoking age is an inevitability and cites a 2015 study by the US National  Institute of Medicine, which suggests that raising the legal smoking age to 21 could drop the smoking rate by roughly 12 percent and eventually reduce smoking-related deaths by 10 percent. Study Shows Drop in Smokers In the first quarter of 2017, the national group Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada (PSC) released its health survey on 2000–2014 tobacco use in Canada.  During this period, there was an overall 1.1 million drop in the number of Canadian  smokers, while  the number of smokers ages 15 to 19 also dropped but remained substantial. The percentage of Canadians who smoked fell by one-quarter, from 26% of Canadians aged 12 or older to 19%.  Over the  2000–2014 study period, the  majority of people ages 20 to 29 who have ever smoked reported smoking their first cigarette between the age of 15 and 19, while the percentage of those who reported their first cigarette over the age of 20 increased slightly from 7 percent to 12 percent.