AUNT

JENNIFER’S
TIGERS
-ADRIENNE CECILE RICH
 WHAT IS THE
In this poem, the poetPOEM
expresses the inner feelings of a repressed woman-
Aunt Jennifer.
The poem revolvesABOUT?
around the theme of male chauvinism and gender
conflicts. The victimisation of the women by their male counterparts has been
strongly brought out in the poem making it a forceful expression of the evils of
patriarchy.
Aunt Jennifer is an absolute victim and suffers oppression at the hands of her
husband even during his absence. She is never able to liberate herself from
this domination in the name of custom and law. She creates for herself an
alternate world of freedom, but can live in it only in her imagination.
But who was
she??
someone’s
A poet?
Someone’s
daughter?
wife?
woman
lesbian
feminist
essayistMORE...
AND MUCH
WHAT DOES THE BOOK SAY
ABOUT HER?
WH Auden described the poems of her first
volume, A Change of World (1951) as "neatly
and modestly dressed, speak quietly but do not
mumble, respect their elders but are not cowed
by them".
 She was also one of the first to tackle the theme of
lesbian existence, in her essay, "Compulsory
Heterosexuality and Lesbian Experience", which
concerned itself with "how and why women's choice
of women as passionate comrades, life partners,
co-workers, lovers, community, has been crushed,
invalidated, forced into hiding".

Some famous personalities like Alexander Theroux

and Harold Bloom attacked Rich along her way of
proving her point.
SOME OF HER WORKS:

1976: Of Woman Born: Motherhood As

Experience And Institution

1951: A Change of World. Yale University

Press.

1955: The Diamond Cutters, and Other Poems

1963: Snapshots of a daughter-in-law: poems

1973: Diving into the Wreck

1991:
An Atlas of the Difficult World: Poems 1988-199
1
.
 STANZA 1

Aunt Jennifer’s tigers prance across a screen,

Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.

They do not fear the men beneath the tree;

They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.

 •The poet is talking about a lady whom she addresses as aunt Jennifer.
•She is embroidering a piece of cloth. It could be a tablecloth or a wall hanging.
•The pattern shows tigers who are moving and jumping around all over the fabric.
•They are bright yellow in color like the color of the Topaz stone.
•The dense green forest background is their home.
•They are proud and fearless citizens of the forest.
•Here is a contrast between Aunt Jennifer and her tigers. The tigers are fearless but this
lady, who is embroidering them is not so.
•The tigers look elegant, shining and full of the gentleman’s grace.
 STANZA 2

Aunt Jennifer's fingers fluttering through her wool

Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand.
 In the second stanza, Aunt Jennifer's present state is depicted. Her fingers are
"fluttering through her wool" showing both physical and mental weakness and
a state of agitation. She finds it difficult to pull the needle. "The massive weight
of Uncle's wedding band / Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand" reminds us
that her marriage responsibilities weigh her down which makes her unable to
realize her full potential as a woman in a male-dominated society. She finds a
means of escape from the difficult situation through her embroidery.
 STANZA 3

When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie

Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.

The tigers in the panel that she made

Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.

In the third stanza we see that years have passed and yet Aunt Jennifer’s oppression was
never terminated. She lays motionless, pale, frail and petrified. All her life she had
dreamed of being freed from the agony of being a married woman in her time and all the
outlandish customs, rules and regulations she was obliged to follow, which were put to
rest by something as humane and inevitable as death. The ordeals she was mastered by
still survived. And yet the tigers on the panel pranced around gleaming with pride,
gallant and fierce. She may never speak them, but her ideas and visions of a life liberated
from all callous restraints will live on in the tigers.
LITERARY
DEVICES

❖ ALLITERATION
● fingers fluttering
● prancing proud

❖ CONTRAST
● tigers do not fear the men beneath the trees, but in contrast men
fear
● the sleek chivalric tigers

❖ IMAGERY
● bright topaz denizens
LITERARY
DEVICES

❖ IRONY
● ‘‘will go on prancing, proud and unafraid’- heightens our
sense of irony because the tigers are so much stronger
than the woman who created them.

❖ METAPHOR
● ringed with ordeals

❖ TRANSFERRED EPITHET
● terrified fingers
CONCLUSION

The poet wants to represent the life of a woman who has to live under a constant
fear from her husband. Also, she will only get freedom when she will die. The poet
addresses the constraints of married life experienced by a woman.
In the poem "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers”, the specific structure under discussion is
Aunt Jennifer's marriage. The reader is given various clues that the power
balance of Aunt Jennifer's marriage is tilted against her and that Aunt Jennifer
herself is profoundly unhappy.
Aunt Jennifer's marriage may be physically abusive, which is implied in the description of
Aunt Jennifer as being terrified. At the time the poem was written, domestic violence
was often treated as a private, family matter and not spoken about directly. The way
the poem handles Aunt Jennifer's suffering is consistent with this social norm. However,
it is not made explicit, meaning the marriage may also be read as only controlling and
emotionally abusive rather than physically abusive.
The skill and passion Aunt Jennifer pours into her creations speaks to the rich internal
life of the female characters.
The end of the poem reveals the bitter truth that even death will fail to release Aunt
Jennifer from the chains of servility which have bound her during her lifetime.