Adrienne Rich views herself as a woman above all else, but she was not always of that mind. As she first entered into the literary world as a poet she prized her status as a writer above her position as a woman. Rich's beliefs evolved over time as she realized a re-vision of her life and of her role in society. One need only analyze the progression of her poetry over the course of her career to see that her style and views changed significantly.
             The first poem we will evaluate is Aunt Jennifer's Tigers, written in 1951. In this poem Rich describes a woman sewing even as "the massive weight of Uncle's wedding band" (Rich, pg. 633) makes it difficult to continue the chore. She describes a woman who is doing exactly what the society of the time would deem appropriate. Rich also depicts the woman as terrified, living in fear of what might transpire if she were to not live up to the "proper" image of a female. Even amongst all this, however, we begin to realize Rich's true nature as she describes Aunt Jennifer's creation lasting through all time, even after she is dead. Still, she is a poet first and foremost in her own mind, as she herself admits to being "the girl who wrote poems, who defined herself in writing poems" (pg. 632). At this time she is still young and a bit inexperienced. She soon goes on to get married and have children, and in a short time realizes that marriage and motherhood are not institutions in which she believes.
             Rich begins to feel trapped, and longs to find a balance between being what would be considered a proper woman and being a true woman who stands for what she believes and desires. "(Her) anger and frustration were hard to acknowledge in or out of poems because (she) cared a great deal about (her) husband and (her) children" (pg. 635). Eventually she would express this frustration quite clearly in a poem entitled Snapshots of a D...