Walking In The Dark By Adrienne Rich Analysis

Writing is a tool that should be used to push limits, and expand horizons and challenge cultural norms. Unfortunately, not all personal writing challenges the reader however, the majority of good writing will. Writing is not inherently political, but it is one of the most direct ways to express political beliefs or push a specific agenda. Creative writing however is also shaped by an authors political belief thus making it a much more political form of writing; therefore, the more political the author the more that comes out in there writing. In Adrienne Rich’s work Diving into the wreck she has overtly political poems that are real and still relevant in todays politics this is very prominent in her poem “Rape”. She writes some of her more …show more content…
In the first point Rich writes about a starving man who is being observed not helped, in the next she writes about women and blood and how men both worship and condemn blood. In the second stanza she writes “You worship the blood you call it hysterical bleeding” (27,28) the contradictory statements within the stanza show how blood (specifically menstrual blood) is viewed within a male dominated society. The opposing views of blood emphasise how men view women when they do not serve them. The patriarchy would worship a woman’s cycle if it meant it was benefiting men (pregnancy) however once it is no longer beneficial it is condemned. It is also used as a way to control and demine women by calling it “hysterical” the patriarchy is calling women hysterical and therefore undermining what little power they have. In the third stanza Rich puts men at the forefront of her talk about the “tragedy of sex” (33) she talks about how sex is a man’s world and how a woman who does not serve men is useless. In the fifth stanza the machinery of a mans world has now warped into this fantasy world in which there is no distress. However, it is soon revealed that this is only a dream. Rich’s political views are seen in every new verse of this poem. Between the condemnation of a menstrual cycle when it is not used to serve men and the distain shown towards a woman who is not there to please a …show more content…
In the first part of the poem there are mentions of war, scars and death; there are conflicting images of a soldier and a slave. In one part the speaker alludes to the Vietnam war and makes it seem like the dead whom she talks about are the soldiers. They then talk about the horrors that have stained there heaven and how “everything outside our skins is an image of this affliction” (#,#) this is a politically charged statement that was placed in the poem to express Rich’s opinions on the war. However, as the stanza progresses the line between solider and slave bluree as she tries to intertwine the two, so she may emphasise the gritty reality that these people may face. At the end of the first stanza is where the solder/slave allusion gives way to the hard reality of two women “working with me to remake this trailing knitted thing, this cloth of darkness,” (#,#) Rich gracefully transitions from one life of fear and hiding to the next. In the second stanza in her list Rich writes about the unfortunate reality that befalls many women simply because they are women. Rich seems to be speaking up against conventional gender roles and the loneliness that accompanies them. She writes about how the loneliness that society forces upon women “has a huge lock shaped like a woman’s head” by saying this Rich is bringing light to the unfortunate reality that befalls many