Adrienne Rich “Diving into the Wreck”

It is a poem that embodies Adrienne Rich’s activist attitudes and feminist beliefs.
Rich’s desire for women to receive the same equal rights as men, as well as freedom
from oppression, is immortalised in her poetry

The poem is narrated in first person. (S)He is intentionally mysterious, a solitary

person, part human, part fish, female and male. The speaker moves from “I” to the
collective “We” undermining the diver’s identity. “We” probably alludes to people of
either gender who understand or are sympathetic towards the struggle for female
emancipation. The speaker also places the responsibility of this struggle on the reader The poem, written in free verse,
themselves with “You are”. This is not an individual task or quest, it involves is divided into ten stanzas of
collectivity, implying that the quest is for everybody. different lengths. The number of
syllables of each line is also
Rich utilizes assonance, dissonance, anaphora, and repetition to enhance different, thus giving greater
the interior rhythms of the poem thus adding a sense of familiarity to the freedom to the poem and
otherwise irregular and unconventional form. emphasizing the fluidity of the
language. The disjointed,
POETIC DEVICES

Enjambment. The small lines spill down the page quickly and fluidly. The fragmented, and fractured form
poem seems to unfold in a kind of vertical dive down the page. The enjambment of the stanza reinforces the
makes the poem so much more live like as though each line signals a further poetic speaker’s isolation and
stage in the descent into the ocean. The use of enjambment affects the pace at the content amplifies the tones
which the poem is read. of loneliness and solitude.
Alliteration. In line 5 the /b/gives a kind of slapping quality, like a wetsuit being pulled on tight and pinging into
place. Later, the /s/ gently evokes the sounds of the ocean's surface. In line 23 "rung after rung" gives the
impression of a step-by-step action, The harsh alliteration of "cripple" and "crawl" in lines 29 and 30 draw attention
to the difficulty the speaker faces while moving down the ladder in flippers. In the final stanza, the hard initial
sounds of "courage" and "cowardice." binds these opposite words together, revealing that both bravery and fear can
push someone down towards the wreck

As in the poem, there is a distrust of fact and truth in postmodern thought; such a distrust leads one to seek his/her
own experience of truth, which has led postmodern thought into the deconstructive, confusing chaos that it really is. The
allusion to androgyny could be a representation of the author’s theories about the ‘social construction of gender’

The Wreck and The Drowned Face. In a feminist reading of the poem, the wreck reflects women's history. The
speaker dives "into the wreck" in order to bear witness to this destruction, to understand the pain and suffering
to which women have been subjected for so long, and to tell those stories that have been lost. The figurehead
relates to the poem's implicit focus on women's rights. The face thus represents those stories, ideas, and
SYMBOLS

perceptions left untold—those people who get written out of history by those in power (patriarchal society)

The Book of Myths refers to the stories perpetuated in society that shape our current conception of what
constitutes gender in the first place. But myths are not the truth. The poem insists on a division between myths
and reality—between the "story of the wreck" and "the thing itself." The speaker wants to go beyond this book of
myths to understand the truth. Importantly, the speaker says in the end of the poem that "our names do not
appear" in this book of myths. This makes sense when the poem as an extended metaphor for the oppression of
women and erasure of women's voices throughout history

Women’s Oppresion and Erasure. The poem can be read as an extended metaphor about the historical
oppression and erasure of women. Upon reaching the wreck, the speaker appreciates its "damage,” but also its
“threadbare beauty,” “the ribs of the disaster” as well as the “treasures” contained within. In the poem's final line,
the speaker reveals that "our names" do not appear in the book of myths at all. The poem thus becomes a powerful
statement on the erasure of women’s voices—and, importantly, a call for those stories that don’t normally get
heard to be amplified, understood, and valued.
THEMES

Exploration, Vulnerability, and Discovery. Subtly, the poem asserts the importance of exploration and discovery,
and suggests that embracing the unknown and the difficulties that come with doing so ultimately brings a deeper
and richer understanding of whatever is being explored. No single interpretation of the poem is definitive, but they
all share an emphasis on the value of exploration, the power of discovery, and the bravery of vulnerability.

Storytelling and truth. The poem seems to suggest that myths should be deeply investigated rather than taken
at face value. The poem isn’t against myths or storytelling. But it seems to make the point that stories
can reveal truth, but they can also distort truth over time. That’s why the speaker draws a clear distinction
between the “story of the wreck” and “the thing itself.” Stories are such an important part of human existence, but
they don’t always represent reality—they are instead a way of describing, considering, and interacting with that
reality.