Adrienne Rich Essay

289 Words2 Pages
In the poem “The Uncle Speaks in the Drawing Room” Rich writes from the perspective of her uncle who is preaching against a protest for social change. The uncle is powerful, coming from a wealthy, upper class background. He refers to the upper class as “our kind”. This choice of phrase conveys his elitist attitude. He is confident that the working class protestors pose no threat to him or his “kind”, dismissing them as “follies that subside”. To the uncle the “mob” is powerless, but perhaps his ignorance and underestimation of the protestors gives them more power. The uncle is the narrator throughout the entire poem so vocabulary is very important. The twin themes of power and powerlessness are two of Adrienne Rich’s most used themes. Her poetry especially focuses on the differences in the way men and women use or abuse power (in her opinion), for example in her poem “Power”. Many of her poems also focus on the powerlessness of women at the time she was writing, such as “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers”. While I do not agree with many of Rich’s opinions, I think she does an excellent job of conveying her ideas through her use of symbolism, vocabulary and striking imagery. Rich also uses imagery when dealing with the themes of power and powerlessness in “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers”. “The massive weight of Uncle’s wedding band sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer’s hand”. This image illustrates how much Aunt Jennifer was weighed down by the negative influence of her husband and how he crushed her spirit. The image of Aunt Jennifer’s “terrified hands” is an extreme one, used to stress just how much power her husband had over her. She would forever fear him, even in
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