TOPIC

Chauvinism, patriarchy & dominance runs

through the very vein of the poem
“ Aunt Jenifer’s Tiger”
Objective:
1. To study how women are silenced in the male- dominated society, a topic
that has great relevance even in this twenty- first century.

2. To explore the mechanisms of the ‘male domination’ and 'patriarchy' that

exists in the society.

3. Women’s positions in a conventional society, and strongly argues for

restructuring identity and, rewriting the norms that result in en- visioning
a new world to come.

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Introduction
This poem was written in 1951, a time in which there were much
fewer options for women in terms of careers and family planning. Women were
not financially independent. We get a glimpse into the lives of the Aunt Jennifer's
of the world, and a glance into the ways that gender affects us. Even today the
problem lay buried, silent, in the minds of women over the globe. In the middle
of the twentieth century women suffered a strange stirring and a sense of
dissatisfaction. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. Time and again
women heard in voices of tradition and of Freudian superiority that they could
desire--no greater destiny than to glory in their own femininity. Some women,
remembered painfully giving up their dreams and passions, but most of the
younger women no longer even thought about them. The society celebrated their
maturity, femininity and their adjusting mentality.

Women were expected to devote their lives from earliest girlhood to

finding a husband and bearing children. But women's imagination is boundless,
like music, painting, and writing: their stream of apparition is incredible. Rich, in
her poems, has explored the mechanisms of the male- gaze and tried to re-
construct the identity of the women as it was before being distorted by the
phallocentric ideology. The poet has directed her gaze upon the gazing process of
the mainstream. She examines women‘s allotted positions in American society,
and pry open a space in the critical models available for reconstructing identity
and, rewriting the canon that result in en-visioning a new world to come.

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 Author

Adrienne Cecile Rich was born May 16, 1929, in Baltimore,

Maryland, to an assimilated Jewish father, who had distanced himself from the
Jewish religion and culture, and an Episcopalian mother. Rich attended Radcliffe
College, a women’s school linked with Harvard University. While she was still in
college, English-born American poet W.H. Auden (1907–73) selected her first
collection, A Change of World (1951), for publication in the Yale Younger Poets
series. This volume contained many notable works, including "Aunt Jennifer's
Tigers." Rich's early poetry is formal, restrained, and highly structured. In 1953
she married Alfred Conrad (1924–70), an economics professor, with whom she
had three children.

Throughout the 1960s and 70s, Rich became political as both a

feminist and an antiwar activist. Her increasingly less formal poetry explored
these personal shifts. Her 1963 collection Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law:
Poems 1954–1962 showed a drift away from structural formalism—poetry with

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set rhyme and meter—toward colloquial language and irregular line and stanza
length. In 1966 she and her family moved to New York City, where she began
teaching, first at Swarthmore and then Columbia. She and Conrad grew
increasingly estranged, and in 1970 he died by suicide. In 1976 Rich came out
publicly as a lesbian.

Rich's 1973 volume Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971–1972 won
the National Book Award for Poetry in 1974. Rich accepted the prize with
African American authors Alice Walker (1944–) and Audre Lorde (1934–92) as
a show of female solidarity. She also published a significant body of criticism
including Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Institution and Experience (1976),
which combines feminist scholarship and personal reflection. Rich's mature
poetry explored sexuality, feminism, racism, politics, history, and her own
complicated Jewish heritage. She won numerous awards, including a 1994
MacArthur Fellowship. In 1997 she refused a National Medal of Arts from the
Clinton administration on political grounds.

Rich died March 27, 2012, of complications from rheumatoid arthritis,

from which she had suffered most of her adult life. She was a leading feminist
and activist and one of the foremost intellectuals in the United States, as well as
one of its most prominent queer voices. Her decades-long career produced over
20 volumes of poetry and several books of prose. She was survived by her three
children and her partner of over 30 years.

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About the poem “Aunt Jenifer’s Tiger”

The first verse of the poem describes the fearless tigers Aunt Jennifer
creates in needlepoint. The speaker describes the tigers which her aunt produced
by using colored threads on heavy cloth. They are set in motion, moving quickly
by raising the front legs and jumping forwards on the back legs. In the green
jungle they look bright yellow and as valuable as topazes which reveals her
dream of a happier life in her needle work.

Aunt Jennifer lives a quiet and subdued life but the tigers she
imagined are just opposite to her. They are proud, active, fearless, determined
and chivalric "prancing" across the tapestry. Their freedom and dignity is
contrasted in the second verse to the restrictions of marriage, symbolized by the
wedding band that weighs down Aunt Jennifer‘s fingers as she sews. The poet
tells us about Aunt Jennifer's needlework tapestry, which features beautiful bright
tigers prancing fierce less. Though they aren't real, these tigers seem pretty alive
to us. The tigers are strong and have no fears, so they've got that going for them.
Why does the speaker ascribe a human attribute like "prancing" to a non-human
thing like an animal, or a representation of an animal, Aunt Jennifer, though, is
not so free. It is found that these tigers aren't in iron cages, just scattered
throughout the house. They are not afraid of the men, even though they are right
underneath the tigers.

The tigers are so brave that they "pace in sleek chivalric certainty."
Their "chivalric certainty" is a representation by Aunt Jennifer of her own
envisioned power. It reasserts the rift between her actual social existences. Yes,
passages in Rich, especially certain poems of the mid-to-late seventies, have,
quite intentionally, shaken and shocked readers, women as well as men, and, not
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surprisingly, anger and outrage expressed with such concentrated and convincing
vehemence alienated many. "The Phenomenology of Anger" is an extreme and
disturbing statement (for the poet, too, no less), but Rich's attempt to become the
lightning rod for feelings long suppressed in herself and in other women has to be
read as a lyric poem in a body of work that extends and qualifies and
complements it. There is no question that during those initial combative years of
feminist definition Rich decided to write primarily to and about women and that
male figures entered the poems almost exclusively as the patriarch and enemy.

"Chivalric" connotes all those things that a true knight represents:

loyalty, courtesy, and bravery. The main images are of Aunt Jennifer as a fearful
wife and, secondly, the magnificent tigers she creates in her panel. Images of
precious substances run through the poem: topaz, ivory, and gold of ‗wedding
band‘. The yellow precious stone ‗topaz ‘metaphorically stands for the stripes of
tiger. In the poem, meek Jennifer and her confident tiger are contrasted with each
other. Fear is the prime atmosphere in Jennifer‘s painful life where her fingers
tremble while doing needle work in her husband‘s absence. The speaker
personifies the tigers, imagining that they have human feelings, like fear. But
these men beneath the tree on the tapestry- are real men, careless and dominant.
The tigers are awesome bright topaz denizens of the forest who pace with honor
and braveness.

Ironic awareness of Aunt Jennifer‘s position as a married woman

shows her as ringed with ordeals she was mastered by, image Rich sets against
the proud and unafraid tigers, potently and aggressively themselves as a
symbolic expression of the confident and capable female artist certain of her
powers. Yet powerful they are,

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 They are fixed and framed within the screen, as within the art form
static as an emblem, boundaries in space, suspended in time and utterly unfree
to act in the world – just as the feminine woman, ornamental and decorative
object of male domination is caged, her energy restricted, with a patriarchal
culture.`
`Did Aunt Jennifer imagine herself as a tiger? It can be presumed that
the tigers are symbols of her inner life that she couldn't express. Those tigers
are representations of all the qualities that she herself wanted to have, but
couldn't, because of her husband. The tigers display in art the values that Aunt
Jennifer must repress or displace in life: strength, assertion, fearlessness,
fluidity of motion. The poem also explores the eternity of art. Even if she was
unsatisfied by her marriage, Aunt Jennifer found a life for herself in her art and
she will live forever through her tigers, "prancing, proud and unafraid". The
final verse of the poem persists in this destabilization as here rebellion and
repression meet in the simultaneity of the fearless tigers and the lifeless aunt.

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Theme
The theme of the poem “Aunt Jennifer’s Tiger” relates to the issue and
subject of male dominance in society. The theme wants to highlight the conflicts,
issues and struggles that a woman has to face in the male chauvinistic society.
Aunt Jennifer is essentially the protagonist in the poem and she symbolizes or
represents the women across the globe who has been victims of persecution and
oppression due to the patriarchal system. The poet has expressed her concerns for
the women via this poem.

In this poem the poet Adrienne Rich talks about a married

woman’s struggle with a male dominated society. A woman feels
strangled and suffocated in such an atmosphere. She loses her complete
identity and existence. Her desires are suppressed and she leads a dull
life.

The intolerance is so high that it affects her physically and

mentally both. Aunt Jennifer is the best symbol of it in this poem. She
becomes the victim of her husband’s tyrannical behavior. She is so timid
that she is unable to express her desires directly. She can’t oppose the
oppression made by her husband.

At last her embroidered work depicts her desire for freedom.

The embroidered tigers on the panel are the symbol of freedom, bravery
and fearless nature. It reflects on the broader theme of gender roles and
the impact of societal expectations on personal identity.

This poem offers a poignant commentary on the challenges

faced by individuals within oppressive social structures.

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 Explanation Line by Line
In the first line, Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers jump and move across a screen
or panel. It says that Aunt Jennifer is stitching something that is not clear to the
readers. She has created Tigers that are jumping and moving throughout. The
Tigers represent her suppressed desires to become bold and fearless and free
from oppression.

In the second line, the Tigers are described as denizens or dwellers of

dense green forest and are brightly golden coloured. The Tigers reside within
Aunt Jennifer. Tigers usually live on their terms and fear no one, as they regard
themselves to be superior in their domain. This shows that Aunt Jennifer has a
deep desire to live on her terms and conditions in the male-dominated society.

In the third line, the Tigers within Aunt Jennifer are a symbol of
strength as they are not afraid of men standing under the tree. These Tigers are
not real or living Tigers. They are the images created by her on a tapestry.
Aunt Jennifer, who is confined and exploited by the oppressive hand of a
patriarchal society, creates in her art an alternate world of freedom.

In the fourth line, the Tigers move about with grace, elegance and
confidence. The Tigers symbolize her dreams, her desire to be free from the
traumatized life that she is living. The poet points in this stanza that women
need to have these qualities to fight against their male oppressors.

In the fifth line of the second stanza, Aunt Jennifer has created
beautiful images of Tigers with wool but her fingers are fluttering because she
is nervous and most probably she is scared of her father.

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 In the sixth line, she is so nervous and her fingers are shaking that she
cannot even pull the ivory needle through the tapestry.

In the seventh line, the Aunt is wearing her wedding ring and she finds
the weight of the ring as a burden on her hand. This line indicates that she feels
burdened with her marital responsibilities.

In the eighth line, the ring on her finger is heavy because it

metaphorically indicates restrictions and challenges in Aunt Jennifer’s married
life due to her husband’s oppression over her.

Through this stanza, the poet says that her Aunt throughout her life
glorifies her husband but she feels so crushed now by the dominance of her
husband that the marital responsibilities become a burden on her.

In the ninth line of the third stanza, the poet says that her Aunt won’t
be relieved of her trauma after her death.

In the tenth line of the third stanza, the poet says that her Aunt
Jennifer will always be subjugated by the burden of marital ordeals and
oppressions by her husband even after her death.

In the eleventh and the last line of the third stanza, the poet says that
the Tigers created by Aunt Jennifer will remain eternal within her and they will
always be proud and fearless, jumping and moving with elegance and grace.

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 Picture of male chauvinism (tyranny) in the poem,
'Aunt Jennifer's Tigers' .
In the poem “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers,” Aunt Jennifer is portrayed
as being oppressed by her husband. She is confined to the boundaries of
her husband’s home and lacks freedom to pursue her own desires.
Additionally, she is weighed down by the duties associated with her
marriage.

Aunt Jennifer was oppressed by her husband. She was not free to do
what she wanted. She was tormented by her husband, as symbolized by her
trembling fingers. The weight of the wedding band shows the burden of her
marriage and her dominating husband. It is clear that Aunt Jennifer is
completely under the control of her husband and he did not treat her well. This
is what prompts her to create tigers who are brave and fierce and can roam
around without fearing men.

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 Summary
In the poem ‘Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers’ a woman expresses her
suppressed feelings through her art. Aunt Jennifer is the victim of the male-
dominated society. She has no one to tell her mental and physical pain. She
makes a picture to convey her deep feelings. The speaker describes the tigers
which her aunt produced on the panel. They are set in motion. They are
moving quickly by raising the front legs and jumping forwards on the back
legs. In the green jungle they look free, bright, brave, fearless and magnificent.

There are men sitting under the tree, but the tigers do not care for
them. They move on to their goal boldly and smoothly. Jennifer finds it
difficult to make pictures by using the ivory needle. She is tired of doing the
household work after she got married. She can’t get herself involved in her
artistic work. She has to do it in her leisure time. Even then she has to be sure
whether her husband is watching her or not. So her hands are terrified. She will
not be free from fear until she dies. She will be dominated by her husband. She
will die, but her art will express her desire to move proudly and fearlessly like
the tigers she has made.

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 Analysis of Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers
The poem ―Aunt Jennifer‘s Tiger explores the controlled condition of women
with all its possibilities of challenging the patriarchal ‗gaze‘ upon the women.
Aunt Jennifer is the archetype whose creative energies are blemished by mans‘
desire to see the women in conventional roles like knitting.―For too long, she
feels , women have been estrange from their creative female selfhood. She
refers to herself as a member of a new generation of women writers creating
new work from the physical energy being generated by women‘s movement
toward what was being called the ―new Space on the boundaries of
patriarchy. The poem reflects a core theme that is seen in Rich's work
throughout her writing life: her unwavering support for women's rights. When
she received the award in 1974, Rich dedicated it to women everywhere—
women who had been silenced, who hadn't been given the opportunity to speak
in their male-dominated society. Andrea O‘ Reily states, I had not realized how
fully and deeply Rich had touched the lives of so many women [4]. ―Poetry is
not a healing lotion, an emotional massage, a kind of linguistic aromatherapy,‖
she said. A seasoned campaigner Rich believed that verse alone could change
deep-rooted social institutions. She was among the most influential writers of
the feminist movement and one of the best-known activists among public
intellectuals of America.

Deborah Pope's and Thomas B.Byars describes the poem as a contest

between the individual and the social, between "imagination" and "gender roles
and expectation", between the "oppressed" and the "oppressor" Aunt Jennifer's
Tigers is a poem highly provocative encouraging political action. Like Plath,

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Rich writes about women‘s roles and experiences but she moved beyond Plath in
discovering ways to apply her anger not to self-destruction but to pointed
critiques and re-envisioning of society. Aunt Jennifer provides a chronicle of the
evolving consciousness of the modern women. Aunt Jennifer‘s image explores
the experience of women, who reject patriarchal definitions of femininity by
separating themselves from the political and social reality that trivializes and
subordinate females. As in other works of Rich, her Aunt Jennifer stands as a
representative for all who are silenced and crippled by the ―world masculinity
unfit for women or men

This poem depicts Aunt Jennifer’s desperate attempts to survive in this male-
dominated society which crushes the spirit of women. She wants to enjoy her life
with freedom but has no choice. She tries to express her desire for freedom
through her art.

The embroidered tigers give the symbolic meaning of a life that has no fear, and
no limits. On the other side, Aunt Jennifer is the symbol of oppression that a
woman faces in matrimony. Customs and laws bind her. It is ironic that even
death could not make her free from her ordeals but she could successfully create
symbols of boldness and courage by weaving tigers on a canvas.

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Conclusion
This poem delivers a very important message in the context of
women’s experiences in a male-dominated society and how adversely it
impacts the lives of women, especially married women. Through her
imagination and craft, the poet touches on a very relevant and significant
subject that continues to drive conversations even today. The poem implores
the women to bring courage by breaking the shackles and becoming bold and
fearless like the Tigers
.
Aunt Jennifer's life implies the presence of patriarchal politics. She
feels the burden of duty and obedience. This is shown by the symbol of the
wedding ring that she wears. It is described as her husband‘s property: Uncle‘s
wedding band‘. Her life with her husband described as a life of ordeals
‘present a negative picture of marriage. The tigers in the poem represent
Jennifer‘s innermost desire. She wants to be strong like the tigers that do not
fear the men. She wants to create precious pieces of art. Her life has been
uncertain, helpless. She finds courage, justice and honor in the smooth
movement of the tigers. Thus the tiger stand for her unfulfilled wishes. Perhaps
Aunt Jennifer uses art as an escape from her troubles. In her artwork Jennifer
imagines the kind of life she would have liked.

Freedom has always been an important value in the United States that
most people are not willing to give it up. Ralph Waldo Emerson, a writer who
lived in the 1800s, reminded Americans of their rights of liberty at a time when
many people started to conform to established norms. He voiced his opinions

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 about the loss of freedom and invited society to realize that they were
relinquishing their rights. Years later, his views still had an impact on citizens.
Adrienne Rich, a poet of the mid-1900s, also found her autonomy a necessity in
life. She wrote a poem in 1951 called “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers,” which exhibited
her opinions about living a life of reliance on others.

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

https://www.coursehero.com
https://www.iosrjournals.org
https://ncertenglish.in
https://www.studyguide360.com
https://www.litcharts.com
https://interestingliterature.com
https://poemanalysis.com
https://poets.org
https://www.toppr.com
https://www.goodreads.com

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