‘the desire to be heard, - that is the impulse behind writing poems, for me’ (Adrienne Rich)
Does the poetry of Adrienne Rich speak to you? Write your personal response, referring to the poems of Adrienne Rich that do/ do not speak to you. …show more content…
The poem is set against the backdrop of political fighting which included France and Algeria during the time she wrote the poem, shown with the image of the man who burned himself alive as a form of political protest, with ‘his whole body a cloud of pain’. However this can still be related to the need for female equality, as such an extreme form of protest may be seen to be included by Rich to show how extreme the need and thus the form of action taken by the feminist movement will have to be to attain female equality, such is the one-sided masculine dominance in the world she lives in, shown through the creation of a political world in the poem where the male is the ‘oppressor’ and the female the colonised, whose ‘dead letters’ have been ‘rendered into the oppressor’s language’, much like the colonzied of a country must learn their conquerers’ language, customs etc. Rich continues her message in another poem, AUNT JENNIFER’S TIGERS. Here the theme of life stopping for no one is initially examined. No matter who dies, life will not stop and this is evidenced by the mention that even when Aunt Jennifer dies, her ‘tigers in the panel that she made/ Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid’. However this can again be linked to the feminist aspect of Rich’s poetry. The tigers can be seen as members of the uncaring, masculine-dominated world who turns a blind eye to the sufferings of the …show more content…
Despite the poem encompassing a ‘world of green’ in which the tigers ‘prance’, Rich does not forget that death is included in this world and that there will come a time ‘When Aunt is dead’. In a more sombre note, Rich displays the callousness of the male mistreatment of women by including a biological reference in her poem, that all males come from and because of women. By the mention of the Aunt Jennifer’s tigers ‘that she made’ we get a sense of how cruel males act towards women, as they reject and mistreat a section of society who are inherent to their existence. Like the tigers were made by Aunt Jennifer, all males come from the female womb; this seem to have been forgotten or even ignored by the males; Rich symbolizes this by the continuing ‘proud, uncaring’ prancing of the tigers, even after their creator is dead. DIVING INTO THE WRECK takes place in the ‘wreck’ which Rich dives into, and there is a resulting feeling of apprehension in the poem. Rich enters the wreck preparing for battle, or some form of attack, with ‘the edge of the knife-blade’ checked and wearing ‘the body-armor of black rubber’. Throughout the poem this feeling of apprehension progresses, with the ladder which is ‘always there/ hanging innocently’ and the silently circling merman. It is like watching a horror movie and waiting for the monster to attack. Rich aims to achieve this here, as she enters the wreck
Does the poetry of Adrienne Rich speak to you? Write your personal response, referring to the poems of Adrienne Rich that do/ do not speak to you. …show more content…
The poem is set against the backdrop of political fighting which included France and Algeria during the time she wrote the poem, shown with the image of the man who burned himself alive as a form of political protest, with ‘his whole body a cloud of pain’. However this can still be related to the need for female equality, as such an extreme form of protest may be seen to be included by Rich to show how extreme the need and thus the form of action taken by the feminist movement will have to be to attain female equality, such is the one-sided masculine dominance in the world she lives in, shown through the creation of a political world in the poem where the male is the ‘oppressor’ and the female the colonised, whose ‘dead letters’ have been ‘rendered into the oppressor’s language’, much like the colonzied of a country must learn their conquerers’ language, customs etc. Rich continues her message in another poem, AUNT JENNIFER’S TIGERS. Here the theme of life stopping for no one is initially examined. No matter who dies, life will not stop and this is evidenced by the mention that even when Aunt Jennifer dies, her ‘tigers in the panel that she made/ Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid’. However this can again be linked to the feminist aspect of Rich’s poetry. The tigers can be seen as members of the uncaring, masculine-dominated world who turns a blind eye to the sufferings of the …show more content…
Despite the poem encompassing a ‘world of green’ in which the tigers ‘prance’, Rich does not forget that death is included in this world and that there will come a time ‘When Aunt is dead’. In a more sombre note, Rich displays the callousness of the male mistreatment of women by including a biological reference in her poem, that all males come from and because of women. By the mention of the Aunt Jennifer’s tigers ‘that she made’ we get a sense of how cruel males act towards women, as they reject and mistreat a section of society who are inherent to their existence. Like the tigers were made by Aunt Jennifer, all males come from the female womb; this seem to have been forgotten or even ignored by the males; Rich symbolizes this by the continuing ‘proud, uncaring’ prancing of the tigers, even after their creator is dead. DIVING INTO THE WRECK takes place in the ‘wreck’ which Rich dives into, and there is a resulting feeling of apprehension in the poem. Rich enters the wreck preparing for battle, or some form of attack, with ‘the edge of the knife-blade’ checked and wearing ‘the body-armor of black rubber’. Throughout the poem this feeling of apprehension progresses, with the ladder which is ‘always there/ hanging innocently’ and the silently circling merman. It is like watching a horror movie and waiting for the monster to attack. Rich aims to achieve this here, as she enters the wreck