Why Do the Women in Adrienne Rich’s Poems Live in Illusion? What Obstructs Them to Come Out from the World of Illusion?

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Adrienne Rich is a feminist American poet and her writings are full of imperialistic and psychological tensions of the 20th century in which especially women find themselves as insecure and afraid of the Patriarchal social authorities. The contemporary social structure compels the women in her poems to live in illusion and also obstructs them to come out of the world of illusion. “Aunt Jennifer’s Tiger” and “Living in Sin” are her feminist poems in which she uses illusion to describe the women’s position in the society. When Rich was growing up, men-dominated society was prevailed and women were expected to become dutiful wives in their adult lives. This theme dominates her “Aunt Jennifer’s Tiger”. It is a visionary poem, which dreams of a happy and fearless life free of male domination, which may give equal and parallel opportunities to the womankind. Aunt Jennifer appears as a symbol of the oppressed women in this poem. In “Aunt Jennifer’s Tiger”, we find that the life of Aunt Jennifer is ‘mastered’ by the male-dominated society especially the ‘ordeals’ of marriage. Aunt Jennifer reveals her dreams of a happier life in her needlework. She makes a panel with images of tigers which are prancing across the screen with chivalry where the tigers symbolise Aunt Jennifer herself. Moreover, she shows that the tigers are not afraid of men beneath the tree because Aunt Jennifer did not fear men at first and was living as an independent individual with her own mind. Her fingers flutter as she knits indicating that her hands are weighed down with massive weight of uncle’s ‘wedding band’. The poet also says after Aunt’s death, her hands are ‘still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by’. Rich shows that Aunt did not get rid of the ordeals of her marriage as well as her husband’s dominance even after her death. But tigers she made will carry on their prancing across the

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