Blog Post #4 Topic #2- Amanda Hovnanian

Amanda Hovnanian

Blog Post #4 Topic #2

The poem of “Diving into the Wreck” by Adrienne Rich is viewed by many as a conceit. A conceit is an extended metaphor that describes something in a roundabout way where the poet or author never truly reveals the exact thing they are talking about. It has been discussed that this poem is a conceit for Rich’s own personal experience with remembering her husband and dealing with her husband’s suicide.

In the poem Rich takes about descending down into the dark water “I go down.” I believe that this is a metaphor for diving back into the memory of her husband’s suicide. She is armed with all of her scuba gear and mask and as she descends into this memory she describes the following, “... I am blacking out and yet/ my mask is powerful/ it pumps my blood with power.” I believe that Rich is trying to express how she feels like passing out from the emotional weight of this memory, but her “mask” of her new identity as a lesbian writer helped to keep her strong while she explores her past. I believe she explains her motives of exploring this painful part of her past when she states “I came to see the damage that was done/ and the treasure that prevail.” She returns to the memory of her husband’s suicide to see the pain that was caused, but also relish in the good that came out of his death. From the death of her husband, Rich was able to be the full fledged writer that she wanted to be and she was free to express herself as a lesbian after so many years of supressing her sexuallity while married to a man.

Rich also writes “the thing I came for:/ the wreck and not the story of the wreck/ the thing itself and not the myth.” I believe this means that Rich does not return to the memory of her dead husband to reminisce about the good marriage or life they had together, but for her husband himself. I believe that Rich is trying to express that she did indeed have feelings for her husband, perhaps not romantic feelings, but she still cared for him on some level. She looks back on these memories to remember her husband as a person, not to remember the facade that she had created to live in with him.

Rich talks about her husband in the lines that state, “whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes/ whose breasts still bear the stress.” This may be Rich referring to how her husband had to bear the stress of her coming out, the realization of the shame that he married a lesbian, or of her leaving him; the result was him killing himself. She also goes on to talk about “we are the half-destroyed instruments/ that once held to a course.” I believe that Rich is again talking about her husband, but also herself. It seems that they both were “half-destroyed instruments” because they both were volatile in their marriage and hurt each other. They both held to the course of being a good married couple, because divorce was frowned upon back then and even more frowned upon were people that recognized as homosexual. So, the couple stayed the course and remained married for a long time even though it tore away at both of them.

Finally, Rich writes “by cowardice or courage/ the ones who find our way back to this scene.” No matter where Rich goes in life this part of her past goes with her. Whether she chooses to remember it out of fear or out of boldness, she still has the memories of her husband and his death.

Word count: 618