The Lesson
The Lesson - meaning Summary
Life Affirmed Through Dying
The poem presents a speaker who experiences recurrent, almost physical sensations of dying—images of collapsing veins, tombs, and rot—yet resists final surrender. Age and defeat have marked the speaker's face and dimmed vision, but these reminders of mortality do not extinguish desire. The tension between decay and vitality resolves in a concise affirmation: the speaker continues to die in small ways because of a deliberate, sustaining love of life. The poem condenses Angelou's recurring theme of resilience and the conscious choice to live despite hardship.
Read Complete AnalysesI keep on dying again. Veins collapse, opening like the Small fists of sleeping Children. Memory of old tombs, Rotting flesh and worms do Not convince me against The challenge. The years And cold defeat live deep in Lines along my face. They dull my eyes, yet I keep on dying, Because I love to live.
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