Diving Into the Wreck

What exactly compels people to do what they do? To make decisions? Both good and
bad? And why do we feel intrigued and attracted to certain things in life? Both good and bad?
Well the answer could be a variety of reasons, which all are probably acceptable and make
perfect sense. But one answer probably is that we as humans just want to move forward, explore,
and overall want to experience life in general. Adrienne Richs Diving into the Wreck is a
work that many can relate to and find meaning in.
Adrienne Rich was born on May 16, 1929 and died on March 27, 2012. To say that in
her 82 years on this planet, she experienced and witnessed a lot, would be an understatement.
Around the time that she wrote Diving into the Wreck, there were several things going on in
the world around her and in her personal life that many may feel are touched upon in the poem.
In the early 70s, many events and movements were affecting society to change. These include
the Vietnam War, feminism, and the civil rights movement and sexual revolution of the 60s
carrying over to the 70s. In her personal life, Adrienne Rich had gone through a divorce and
then found out that her ex-husband committed suicide, so she mustve been going through some
deep, intense, and traumatic emotions at the time. Adrienne Rich wrote poetry that touched upon
and examined themes such as race, war, politics, and womens role(s) in society. One can clearly
see hints of all of this in Diving into the Wreck, but one can also see things that go beyond the
surface of these things if one continues to look (read). When it comes to Adrienne Richs work
involving and intertwining elements of feminism, race, war, politics, and other issues of society,

writer Albert Gelpi points out her evolution. In The Transfiguration of the Body: Adrienne
Richs Witness, Albert Gelpi states, In the ongoing evolution of her poetry, many readers
heara feminism less univocal and essentialist than that of the seventies, more receptive and
responsive to the diversity of womens experiences and values and perspectives, a feminism no
less resolute and committed than before but now more conscious of the complex ways in which
gender is intertwined with matters of class and belief and race. (Gelpi 7) Along with Gelpi,
Cynthia L. Haven seems to agree with the idea of Adrienne Rich being a champion for lots of
causes. In The Suffering of Others: On Adrienne Rich, Cynthia L. Haven comments, Over the
course of a long and productive career, Rich championed just about every major liberal social
cause of our time human rights, gay rights, feminism, and environmental reformRich was
keenly aware of her leadership role as a feminist and lesbian poet. She was a mentor and role
model to generations feminists especially. (Haven 203)
Of course, Adrienne Richs life wasnt one lacking of any shocks or controversies, as
Haven mentions a couple. Haven mentions a documentary segment dedicated to the now
deceased Rich and marvels, A thirteen-minute Democracy Now segment on her death praised
her championing of womens rights, LGBT rights, and racial desegregation, and it discussed at
length her National Book Award for the 1973 collection Diving into the Wreck. Declining to
accept the honor alone, Rich invited writers Audre Lorde and Alice Walker to join her, and they
received it on behalf of all women. She went further a quarter century later, rejecting outright the
National Medal of Arts in 1997 because of increasing brutal impact of racial and economic
injustice in our country. (Haven 203)
When we were younger we had innocence. When we were younger, we were also very
curious. So in a way, we all had a bit of bravery in all of us. No fear at all. Nothing holding us

back. We were also more honest as a result. We had freedom. We were free to be ourselves.
Diving into the Wreck, may be considered a celebration of individualism and individual
freedom. The beginning of the poem could help support this with the line, I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his assiduous team aboard the sun-flooded schooner but here alone.
(Rich 1) The line can literally refer to going on a diving trip all alone instead of with a team, but
that can also mean that one is free to do something or go somewhere by themselves instead of
being associated with or belonging to a group.
But then as we got older, many of us started getting insecure over other peoples
validation. We started paying less attention to ourselves and more attention to others in order to
feel accepted. The others among us that decided to not be sheep or followers decided to rebel in
an attempt to hold on to at least some of those original qualities. They were labeled many things,
but mostly somewhere along the lines of misfits or outcasts. We were ostracized for being
different from the rest of the herd or pack. We had our own minds and spirits. We couldnt follow
the Matrix like all the other programs and had decided to wake up and realize some glitches
and imperfections, or inconsistencies/variables in life. So we therefore decided to remain
aware or awake and took the red pill.
In a way, Diving into the Wreck, can also be a piece that entices people to rebel and
resist against norms, and rise up to change the status quo. In The Transfiguration of the Body:
Adrienne Richs Witness, Albert Gelpi notes that the concentrated energy of the poetry of the
late sixties and the seventies at once disturbing and arousing registers the poets sense of
crisis and refusal to submit to its doomed logic. Its imagery meets the psychological and social
violence of contemporary existence with vehement, even violent resistance as Rich sought to

stammer out a new grammar of personal and political connection, a new prosody of relationship
and love, envisioned at this point almost exclusively in the bonding between women. (Gelpi 10)
Metaphorically, the references to the ocean in Diving into the Wreck can symbolize
ones path to self-discovery or becoming comfortable in ones own skin. We all have experiences
that others may have gone through, but also some that hardly anyone else may have gone
through. And some of these experiences we may have gone through or will have to go on
completely all on our own. And only until then will we be able to fully understand those
experiences ourselves. Those experiences are actually interpersonal journeys themselves; we
emerge a different person on the other side or emerge with a newfound enlightenment of some
type. In Diving into the Wreck, Adrienne Rich goes into great detail when describing the
process of climbing down the ladder of a schooner when diving, to paint a great scene of images
for the reader to imagine.
I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
And there is no one
To tell me when the ocean

Will begin.

First the air is blue and then

It is bluer and then green and then
Black I am blacking out and yet
My mask is powerful
It pumps my blood with power
The sea is another story
The sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
To turn my body without force
In the deep element.
Those two stanzas make it seem almost as if the protagonist of the poem is going into
another world. As if the ocean is accepting their entrance and absorbing them; the protagonist
becomes one with the ocean. Yet, there is no exact way for the protagonist to tell where exactly
the ocean begins since they are diving on all alone on their own. This all seems to be almost a
celebration of life and exploration throughout life. The ocean represents life and with the way the
protagonist describes everything, it can all be thought of as the protagonist re-entering the womb
of Mother Earth. This makes more sense with the fact that the first mammals to walk on land had
to adapt and evolve from mammals that lived in the water. And if one wishes to believe that
Adrienne Rich injects parts of her life in this poem along with the overall theme of (self)
exploration, then one can read the following stanza:
The thing I came for:

The wreck and not the story of the wreck

The thing itself and not the myth
The drowned face always staring
Toward the sun
The evidence of damage
Worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty
The ribs of the disaster
Curving their assertion
Among the tentative haunters.
The stanza can be interpreted as a way of endorsing people to explore and find truth on
their own and not rely any myths. After all, it is always more exciting and even enlightening to
go somewhere or experience something rather than to hear or read about it. When describing the
wreck itself, one can easily think that Rich may be also referring to her broken marriage and exhusband who committed suicide. But the end of that stanza tends to sound like it gives some
hope, which then helps set the tone for the next stanza:
This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
Streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently about the wreck
We dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he
This stanza can be thought of as the part of the poem that touches on (gender) equality
and unity. It almost seems as if the protagonist is a mix of both genders or may even be

something entirely different from human as theres mention of a mermaid and merman. Some
confusion is further created by the use of the word we, and the way it ends with I am she: I
am he. Its almost as if Adrienne Rich is trying to tell us all that we are one.
In the final stanza, Adrienne Rich seems to wrap things up with a repeating theme of
celebrating life and human exploration and introversion. She closes with:
We are, I am, you are
By cowardice or courage
The one who find our way
Back to this scene
Carrying a knife, a camera
A book of myths
In which
Our names do not appear.
This closing stanza can mean so many things, but mostly leads the reader to reflect upon
life. Rich basically says that we are all here in this world and that either through cowardice or
courage, we find our way in this life and world, and carry some tools to help along the way of
our individual journeys. Among these tools is a book of myths in which our names do not
appear. Our names most likely dont appear, because since we are still alive and finding our
ways, were in the process of writing our own book of truths.

Works Cited
Gelpi, Albert. The Transfiguration of the Body: Adrienne Richs Witness.
The Wallace Stevens Journal. Spring 2001. Web.

Haven, Cynthia L. The Suffering of Others: On Adrienne Rich.

The Virginia Quarterly Review. Summer 2013. Web.