The poem
“Diving into the wreck” by Adrienne Rich describes a simple experience of diving
into the ocean. The narrator, having read the book of myths taking the camera and
the knife with her, begins a trip diving into the deep ocean in the first part
of the poem. According to the poem, “not like Cousteau/ with his assiduous team/
aboard the sun-flooded schooner/ but here alone”, the narrator indicates that
the dive is a lonely trip which has no friends or company. Why would she choose
to travel to the deep ocean alone? Doesn’t she know the danger lying under the
water? To figure out the reason, we need to understand what specific events
make the author want to write the poem at that time.
This
poem was published in 1971 and at the same time, the feminist movement broke
out in America. According to the article “Breaking down barriers for Women in
the 1960s-1970s”, “As one
woman at the time put it, ‘The female doesn't really expect a lot from life.
She's here as someone's keeper - her husband's or her children's.’ ”, almost every aspect of women’s life is limited
at that time from family life to workplace. Back to the personal life experience
of Rich, she married her husband Alfred Conrad in 1953 and had three children
with him, but their marriage began to fray in the 1960s when she became
politically aware. Rich later stated that “the experience of motherhood was
eventually to radicalize me”. There must be something special with the
experience of motherhood that makes Rich determine to divorce with Conrad and
support for the feminism movement by publishing one of the representative
collective essays “Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Institution and Experience”. Though
Rich did not mention details about what makes her the decision, she wrote them
in the poem using metaphors.
Back to the poem “Diving into the wreck”, “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”, though the “I” is a singular
form, symbolizes for the group of woman who should fight with the inequality of
rights between men and women. The ocean can be seen as the society in
1960s-1970s when women in America are restricted to have the equal right as men’s
no matter in family life or work place. According to the poem, “I crawl like an
insect down the ladder”, it depicts the harsh environment and hard process
while looking for the wreck which is forgotten but should have been remembered
by people. The social status and right of women are omitted as the wreck that
is forgotten by people in deep ocean.
I like that you looked into the historical context of the poem, by trying to find out more information about the timeline and author of the piece. By doing so you were able to better analyze the work. I like that you gave a bit of a summary in the first paragraph of your paper, followed by the timeline behind the poem and a backstory on the authors life. Your final paragraph was mainly analysis of the work, but I believe your writing could have benefitted from more analysis. You left out a thesis in your intro and there isn't really a conclusion paragraph, so the structure of your post could improve the post by adding additional paragraphs and reworking what you already have.
ReplyDeleteI think you did a really good job in giving a brief, but descriptive summary of the poem. I liked how you did research to give historical context on the poet's life and what may have affected her writing. I think you picked out really good evidence for analysis, but I think you could've expanded on your analysis by making deeper connections between your idea and the evidence you chose.
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