Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers, by Adrienne Rich, is about a woman struggling to deal with her oppressive and constrained lifestyle, and as a way of expressing and freeing herself, she turns to sewing memorable works of art. This is not the poet, Adrienne Riche, first poem that deals with issues women face. She felt dominated by her father’s strong personality while growing up, and didn’t accept how the cultural norm for men was to dominate their wives. She often wrote poems based on everyday experiences, so they came from her heart.
Being a woman who was an open feminist (lesbian), which was very taboo when she was alive (1929-2012), she wrote many works of writing about women’s inequality and feminist related material. She pushed hard for political changes, and is credited with bringing “the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse”. She famously declined the National Medal of Arts in protest of the governments vote to end funding for the National Endowment for the arts. In this particular poem (Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers), she uses the poem structure, figurative language, and imagery, to help portray her thoughts, feelings, and emotions.
The structure of the poem is three stanzas of 4 lines each, with each stanza having two couplets. She probably uses couplets for simplicity sake, and follows a sort of iambic pentameter. However, the first 2 lines of each stanza are not as neat, or follow the iambic pattern as precisely as the last 2 lines of each stanza. This could be the poets own doing, trying to emphasis that the story, which deals with an oppressed woman, is not going to run perfectly or smooth. The poem follows a certain unwritten pattern where it embraces the reader and then breaks the pattern; possibly because it is trying to show that Aunt Jennifer is both trapped by her marriage, but yearns to break loose through her tigers, structurally by breaking the pattern/norm.
The couplet’s themselves are special too, in a sense that they are heroic couplets (rhyming couplets on an iambic pentameter). This could be Adrienne’s attempt to help us see Aunt Jennifer’s work of art as a deed of courageous worth. Since sewing is often considered as “women’s work”, it could help draw your attention to the indignity of women’s inequality. Also, since the poem talks about a patriarchal society, an unhappy marriage, immortality, and art, but in a singy-song way, it delivers its message in a less serious way. This is why many believe a little girl who wasn’t fully aware of Aunt Jennifer’s situation wrote it. Also, by the title, “Aunt” Jennifer’s Tigers”, you can tell that the person who wrote this called her Aunt, which would indicate that the speaker was a young child.
Three main symbols are used in this poem that help the poet express herself. The tigers are the 1st symbol that often catches the reader’s eye, although determining it’s meaning can be a bit tricky. When looking at lines 1-2 we see that the lions live an awesome life and display joy and peace. In lines 3-4 we see that the lions are brave, not afraid of anything, and are like knights in shining armor. This is the antithesis of how Aunt Jennifer’s life is, which can lead you to predict that this is how she wants her life to be. In lines 11-12 the speaker skips to the future, when Aunt Jennifer is dead, but the lions are still alive on her tapestry.
This helps illustrate that although Aunt Jennifer is inevitably going to die, death won’t bring her down, and she will always live on vicariously through her tigers on the tapestry. Now, the next symbol that the reader will most likely recognize is the wedding band, which is the opposite of the tigers. The wedding band is heavy and enslaves Aunt Jennifer, stopping her from living the life she would like to live the tiger’s lifestyle, which has freedom. The wedding band is constantly interrupting Aunt Jennifer’s visions of the tigers, as the wedding band is reality and the tigers are just her fantasy.
The wedding band symbolizes her unhappy marriage, and, on a more broad scale, the patriarchal (male-dominated) society which she lives in. In lines 5-8 the speaker tells us that “the massive weight of Uncle’s wedding band” makes Aunt Jennifer’s needlework hard to do. Her hands struggle to complete it, as the flutter in fear and hesitation. The wedding band here, again symbolizes her marriage, husband, and the patriarchal society that is constantly limiting women’s rights. In lines 9-10 the speaker states that the pain that the symbolic wedding band has caused her will always scar her. She will be “ringed with ordeals she was mastered by”. Therefore, the reader can conclude that Aunt Jennifer is afraid by the reality of her marriage, which has taken away her ability to control her own life and make her own decisions. The needlework symbolizes that although Aunt Jennifer had an oppressive life, she was still able to create amazing pieces of art. So, in a way, it symbolizes the ability to overcome, or if nothing else, outlast repression.
The author also used alliteration, assonance, personification, and imagery to help you visualize what the speaker was talking about. An example of alliteration in the story is “Aunt Jennifer’s fingers fluttering through her wool” which makes it flow when you read it. An example of assonance in the story is “Aunt Jennifer’s fingers fluttering through her wool”.
An example of personification in the story is “When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie/ Still ringed with ordeals she was”, with the personification being giving their dead aunt’s hand terrified. “Bright topaz denizens of a world of green” is imagery using bright colors that suggest Aunt Jennifer’s tigers are more vital than she is. Yellow implies the sun and intense energy, with green reminding one of spring and rebirth (which is what Aunt Jennifer is longing for). Since she can’t physically be reborn, so she uses her sewing to accomplish this. Since the tigers are foreign (not locally seen where she lives), you can assume that Aunt Jennifer would like to travel (another form of escape). Aunt Jennifer’s fingers are “fluttering through her wool” with the imagery word “fluttering” helps the reader understand that she is trying to go as fast as she can. She might be going fast because she is afraid she might not have enough time to finish it, or that she doesn’t want to be interrupted half way through.
So, it is clear now that Adrienne Rich used the poem’s structure, symbolism/imagery, and figurative language to help us get a better picture of Aunt Jennifer’s life and the oppression she was feeling. I feel like it was a very inspirational and emotional poem that leaves the reader feeling the pain that Aunt Jennifer is feeling because of the amazing imagery that is used. The author makes it very clear to the reader that Aunt Jennifer lives in a society where the men make all the decisions, and she feels enslaved to her marriage because her voice is not heard and she is not free to do as she pleases (has to do what her husband tells her to do).
So, she does the only thing that she can do, she picks up some thread and a needle, and begins to sew elaborate tapestries. The images that she sews are of her deepest desires, tigers, which represent freedom, bravery, and fearlessness. That is the type of life she wants to live. However, sewing is no easy task, and she is often reminded about the reality of her life through feeling the weight of her wedding band (metaphorically speaking). She knows that she will eventually die, and is intrigued by the idea that when she dies, her tigers that she made will live on, and she hopes to vicariously live through them, free at last (death shall set her free)! It’s amazing to think that Adrienne Rich was able to say this much in 12 lines with a total of 120 syllables, while this 1000+ essay doesn’t seem to bring the poem justice!
