Read the extract given below and answer the questions (Q. Nos. 106–111) that follow :
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that is wondrously clear

I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Which literary device has been used in the following line?

“But still, like air, I’ll rise.”

The correct answer is Simile.

Explanation:
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two different things to highlight a shared characteristic, explicitly using comparison words such as "like" or "as".

In the given line, “But still, like air, I’ll rise,” the speaker's act of rising (I’ll rise) is compared to "air" using the word “like”. This comparison emphasizes the natural, inevitable, and unstoppable quality of rising, just as air naturally ascends.

Let us look at the other options to understand why they are incorrect:
• Oxymoron: A figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction (e.g., "deafening silence"). There are no contradictory terms in the given line.
• Metonymy: A figure of speech in which a thing or concept is referred to by the name of something closely associated with that thing or concept (e.g., using "the crown" to refer to a king). This is not present in the line.
• Metaphor: A figure of speech that makes an implicit, implied, or hidden comparison between two things that are unrelated, but share some common characteristics, without using "like" or "as" (e.g., "I am a black ocean"). Because this line explicitly uses the word "like," it is a simile rather than a metaphor.