A Litany for Survival

Lorde explores how marginalized people struggle to survive and struggle to improve the lives of their next generation. She repeats different forms of the word “survival” in the title, at the end of the second stanza (Line 24), and at the end of the poem (Line 44). Her repetition brings the reader’s attention to survival right away, redirects their attention back to survival in the middle of the poem, and concludes with the idea of survival—highlighting the thematic role of survival. Marginalized people struggle to survive daily. For instance, women make less money than men in the United States, making it harder to afford housing and food, which is a threat to their survival. Additionally, Lorde explores her own survival and legacy in this poem as a response to her cancer diagnosis.

Lorde and her collective “we” strive for a legacy that illuminates the issues marginalized people face and resolves those issues. The marginalized people of her generation are “those of us who cannot indulge / the passing dreams of choice” (Lines 4-5). To improve the lives of the next generation is to offer them choices and dreams. In the future, they hope that the next generation’s “dreams will not reflect / the death of ours” (Lines 13-14).