Critical Analysis of Adrienne Rich’s poem “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers”

Aunt Jennifer’s Tiger by Adrienne Rich’s poem is splendidly written having excellence rhyming scheme and beautiful imagery. The poem starts with wonderful and eye-catching words which depict the beautiful imagery having deep meanings that express dark and significant truth, the ordeals that women go through their traditional marriage. Her poem is the voice for women to confront the oppression of male dominance. She uses the third person as narrative and her poem is a prove of skilful poetic devices that give the excellence meaning about each word and stanza. This poem shows that women in the society craving for freedom from their domineering male counterparts. Adrienne Rich was in the support of women, in short, she is feminist and she stands against the male dominance. 

The first stanza of the poem begins with a description of Aunt Jennifer's Tiger, and is set to 'prance across a screen'. The women seem to move in fashion and possibly in a concerted manner. The speaker describes the women as 'topaz denizens of a world of green', probably refers to the tiger' strength and impenetrability. The tigers (women) are not scared of "the men under the tree" and expression which mean that these women are aware of the energy they have. Although the women seem no longer to fears the men beneath the tree, their movement seems to be restrained to the pinnacle of the tree with the presence of the men. 

The second stanza is a symbolic one, it’s about ‘Aunt Jennifer’s finger fluttering’, ‘the ivory needle hard to pull’ and ‘Uncle’s wedding band’, through these lines we can analysis the hardships that women deal with such as, lot of sacrifices when she gets to marry and devotion in home life and maintaining the household. All these works are done by ignoring her desires and sacrifice. 

Also Read: Tess of the D'Urbervilles: Tess – “A Pure Woman” Of Victorian Era

The third stanza describes how the matter will be followed, is begin with Aunt is ‘dead’ which shows that even loss of life will now not lose Aunt Jennifer from her ordeals, however, the tigers she has created will continue to appear “proud and unafraid.”

The poetic devices used in this poem are especially Alliteration, Rhyme, and End Rhyme. Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds on the beginnings of words. Alliteration is: “Aunt Jennifer’s finger fluttering with her wool”. The repeated “f” sounds in “fingers fluttering” make the poem high-quality to read. Rhyme may be described as the occurrence of similar or identical sounds on the ends of two or more words. An example of Rhyme might be: “Aunt Jennifer’s tigers prance across a screen, bright topaz denizens of a world of green.” The rhyme is likewise set up inside the words “screen” and “green” as they proportion comparable sounds “ee”. Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers has a non-stop rhyme pattern at the end of each line, also called give up rhyme, including a rhythm that maintains throughout the piece.

Aunt Jennifer's Tiger well-formed literary work. It gives a strong picture of thoughts that Adrienne Rich become preoccupied with. She seems to have been giving an awakening call to the entire society with the message of women liberation. She strongly felt that women's freedom become motioning and nothing can stop it. This poem is a true image of women literature.

Also Read: Internal Colonialism in the poem “Civilians and Soldiers”, by Wole Soyinka

SHARE

Salman Ali

Hi. I’m auther of Blog English Literature for students. I’m huge lover of books. I’m happy to share my views about different topics related to English Literature. I am inspired to help any student, who have any problem related to English Literature.

• 
• 
• 
• 
•