Explication of Adrienne Rich's "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers"
- Date: October 27, 2003
- Level: College, Undergraduate
- Grade: A
- Length: 3 pages (780 words)
- Essay rating:
- Keywords:
aunt jennifer, tigers, poem, adrienne rich, dictionary, personal feelings, ...niece, battered women, prance, older woman, needlework, fictional, distress, webster, fingers, sympathy, marriage, job
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Subject > Literature Research Papers > North American > Poetry
Adrienne Rich did a wonderful job portraying the trials of abused and battered women in this poem. These trials could possibly be explained by Rich being the niece of Aunt Jennifer; therefore, personal feelings are exposed throughout the piece. The speaker speaks in an admiring, sincere, tone and her sympathy is apparent because she herself is a female. Rich's poem, "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers" is about the trials of an older woman in distress because her marriage is in trouble, and she is too afraid to leave her husband. The most apparent point in the poem is the ongoing contrast between the fictional tigers and Aunt Jennifer.
The tigers represent a powerful character created by Aunt Jennifer through her needlework, which she ...
... continues AABBCCDDEEFF. "Tree" (3) and "certainty" (4) are examples approximate rhyme. Imagery is used to create the tigers, and symbolism created a character that Aunt Jennifer could never be.
The third stanza speaks about what will happen when Aunt Jennifer passes away. "When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie/ Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by" (9-10): Aunt Jennifer will lie in her deathbed wearing the ring that tainted her life. Until that day, she will keep finding things to get her mind off of her husband. "The tigers in the panel that she made/ Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid" (11-12): even when Aunt dies, the tigers she created will continue
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