Undressing Aunt Frieda

The poem “Undressing Aunt Frieda” is about the speaker’s Aunt and the recollection of her life as she lies on her death bed. The poem takes place as the speaker and his daughter visit the dying woman. The first part recalls memories of Aunt Frieda in the past, while the second part addresses the lessons the speaker and his daughter have learned from her. During the act of undressing Aunt Frieda, the speaker begins to become emotional and remembers the past with her. The poem uses the unique aspects of how she undressed as a means to describe the emotions and memories of her and how she impacted the speaker’s and his daughter’s lives. As the narrator starts to undress Aunt Frieda, he remembers her as a protector signified by the way she undressed him. The act of undressing her makes him recall of a time during his childhood where Aunt Frieda undressed him. He recalls that she was cautious and was always on the lookout for danger and shows …show more content…
He imagines back when she was healthy. In this thought, Aunt Frieda undresses “herself, slowly” (line 12). She is doing this possibly “for the love of a man” (line 13). During the undressing, she reveals herself to him. The speaker describes her body as “frail” (line 15) and possessing a “scarred beauty” (line 16). He elaborates by stating that Rubens would “surely have missed” (line 16) that beauty but, Rembrandt would “have immortalized” (line 18) it. To make sense of the comparison between the two artists’ ability to capture Aunt Frieda’s “scarred beauty”, one can look at each respective artist’s work titled Descent from the Cross. In this work, Rembrandt’s depiction fundamentally transforms Rubens original work into a powerful realism that allows the viewer to develop a deeper understanding of Christ’s suffering. Thus, this relates back to Aunt Frieda as Rembrandt would be able to capture her beauty better than Rubens