On “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers”

*Adrienne Rich's poetry is standard fare in English and Women's Studies courses across the country; she is a highly valued teacher and activist. Both her poetry and speaking engagements incite action towards finding the relationship between the political and the personal minds of women.

Adrienne Rich is writers who focus on feminist poems expressing her anger... In most of her poems she likes to focus on female experience. One of the poems she wrote is “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers”. It is about a woman whose husband controlled her life almost as if he was her master, and she was his slave: She did what he told her to do, and did not do what he told her not to do. Aunt Jennifer try to escape from her real world by doing things her husband didn’t wanted her to do. Adrienne Rich tells the reader that even though Aunt Jennifer was not able to live a free life, she still let her spirit live and do what she wished she could do through her creations. One of her creations was the Tiger, who “will go on

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This truly is a poem that makes people appreciate the value their freedom. Women needed to realize to live for themselves. Aunt Jennifer's "terrified hands will" never rest, even after she is dead. They don’t have to sit around and depend on men. Adrienne Rich really captures Aunt Jennifer's point of view, and how she feels about her life. This will worry her conscience forever. She was terrified to stand up for herself to her husband the whole time she was married, and could not face him. The significance of this is that Aunt Jennifer, although very scared and unconfident of herself in real life, had a spirit that would meet and beat anything that challenged her pretty than run away from it.

Rich’s poetry didn’t necessarily change society itself, but changed a lot of people’s, especially women’s views towards the way they live their life and exactly who they are.

In conclusion, "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers" is a poem about a woman who uses descriptions ways to express herself rather than in words or in front of other people since she has such strict chains placed upon her. Another example of Rich's prose can be found in the third stanza. Really, as shown through the descriptions in this poem, one has a better understanding of this poem. Finally, in the last stanza the reader is told that "the tigers…she made will go on prancing, proud and unafraid" even after Aunt Jennifer it dead. This shows her fear: while the tigers represent her spirit and how she would like to live, her hands represents the reality of her life.

Approximate Word count = 676
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

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