Aunt Jennifer example essay topic

In what ways do two of these poems represent women? The different means, in which women represent women in society, are displayed in conflicting situations that revolve around the central historical and personal context. Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Adrienne Rich's views are shown clearly in their poetry, "How do I love thee?" and "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers". The feeling of being emotionally open and free to feel what they like, are being conflicted by the beliefs of women being oppressed and silenced. Aunt Jennifer is represented as a passive and overwhelmed woman, who has been worn down, primarily by her marriage.

The poem opens in discussion of what is left for the generations - this tapestry showing such vibrant, powerful animals. "Bright topaz denizens of a world of green... ". They are confident and sleek even though they are in a foreign environment. The reader gets a sense of triumph, the tigers outwitting the men. There is a nobility and royalty ("chivalric") attributed to the tigers.

Aunt Jennifer must be a carefree spirit, who could dream of these man-eating tigers, out of reach of the men who hunt them. The second stanza introduces Aunt Jennifer, how much of a struggle it is for her to create this tapestry, but how determined she is to work on it. She uses an ivory needle - also symbolic as it comes from another wild African animal that has been hunted by men. The tapestry is a way of expressing her inner self. Aunt Jennifer can't escape in her real life because of "the massive weight of Uncle's wedding band". Though the tigers are above the men, Aunt Jennifer is pinned down: "the band sits heavily on her hand".

She is trapped by both the marriage and the culture that supports the marriage. The third stanza explores Aunt Jennifer even more. It foretells her death; it refers to her hands as terrified. The "ringed with ordeals she was mastered by" echoes the image of the wedding band in the 2nd stanza and the idea of being trapped and captured by man. The final couplet, though, gives hope and a sense of triumph that Aunt Jennifer did manage to escape after all, through her work of art. The sense of hope is brought out in a subtle management of images.

The first is of the proud tigers. The second about terrified Aunt Jennifer. The third refers to firstly Aunt Jennifer, in continuation of the 2nd stanza, and then to the tigers. In this way, by starting and ending the poem with the tigers, Rich is containing the real life within the fantasy life, in reverse of what we know of Aunt Jennifer, whose inner life is contained within her outer life. Her tigers will "go on prancing, proud and unafraid". In contrast to Rich's poem, Elizabeth Barrett Browning speaks confidently expressing who she is through her poetry.

Elizabeth wrote, "How do I love thee" for Robert Browning, as well as all the other Portuguese sonnets for him as well, but she did not dedicate it to him because her father was against the two being in love. Thus she disguised it. At the beginning of the poem she deals in lofty and abstract ideas, the speaker provides no image or symbol to make her love concrete or easy to grasp. The abstractions occurring establish the largeness of her love, maybe even making it beyond comprehension.

Describing her love as a very positive force bringing her experience to the "Depth, breadth, and height" referring to all dimensions, and the speaker specifies the condition of her soul at the time these dimensions are largest: "when feeling out of sight". Taken in context, the phrase probably describes a soul that feels limitless. Sun and candlelight are the first concrete images we come across in this poem. The earthly time frame these lines suggest, however, is still limitless and all encompassing; "by sun and candle-light" refers to both day and night. It seems that romantic love rescues a lost religious faith, or at least rescues the passion and impulse the speaker used to feel for religious faith. She even lists examples of the nature of her love and the needs it fulfils, how it is expressed.

Her openness on this subject is a huge contrast to Adrienne Rich, as Rich never mentions anything about love, we don't know whether Aunt Jennifer even loved her husband. All we know is that it is a tremendous burden on her. Her lack of experience may have lead her to believe that she was in love at first, but we have no evidence of that. These poems were written almost a hundred years apart, and it shows the contrast of how women felt in their relationships and marriages.

How writing and poetry became more of a voice for them, where in society they sometimes had none in comparison. These women are those voices.