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Survival

Psychology
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The psychological and emotional endurance through adversity, trauma, or threat, often explored in poetry as resilience, memory, or the will to persist against odds.

Detailed Definition
Survival is both physical and psychological. Poetry honors it through resilient imagery, fragmented testimony, or quiet endurance, framing mere existence as an act of courage in the aftermath of devastation.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise,” survival is embodied in repeated rising despite oppression; In Langston Hughes’ “Mother to Son,” survival is passed as legacy: “I’se still climbin’”; In Warsan Shire’s “Home,” survival drives displacement; In Seamus Heaney’s “Digging,” survival links generations through labor; In Lucille Clifton’s “won’t you celebrate with me,” survival forges identity from struggle; In Ocean Vuong’s “Aubade with Burning City,” survival echoes amid war.
Additional Notes
Survival—continuing to exist despite threat—is central to trauma and resistance poetry (Angelou, Shire); differs from endurance by its immediacy; poetic techniques include present tense, bodily imagery, or fragmented syntax; students should analyze what is survived—and at what cost; note its link to testimony—survival as bearing witness.
Also Known As
Persistence Tenacity Resilience Will to live
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