Blog post #4 Topic #2

Blog post #4 Topic #2

Kungyao Wang

Born in 1929, Adrienne Rich was an American poet, essayist, and radical feminist. She was considered one of the most influential poets of the 20th century and played a significant role in the revolution of fighting for the rights of women in society. Given the feminist conditions around the 1970s, her works such as Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law, Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution also seen to be progressive during her time. In the poem “Diving Into the Wreck”, Rich wrote about a diver’s journey into the sea looking for the wreck of a ship beneath the ocean. After considering Rich’s biographical information, I believe the poem is a feminist work, and the process of diving into the wreck is a metaphor the process of fighting for women’s rights.

The first paragraph gives readers an impression that the diver is going to do something dangerous. It is not a simple diving, because the divers not only equip herself with the necessary equipment for diving, she also brings a book, a camera, a knife, and put on the body-armor of black rubber. The book suggests the diver needs to rely on a history or previous statements about the “wreck," the camera implies that there is something that the diver wants to record, and knife indicates that the process is dangerous and she needs a knife to keep her safe. These elements combine together to symbolize that the process of fighting for women’s rights is difficult, but the diver, who represents the brave feminists, would not be afraid of the struggling process and would equip themselves with armor and be ready for the fight.

There are also elements in the poem that symbolizes the male’s dominant role in the patriarchy society. I felt weird when I read “the drowned face always staring toward the sun.” The diver has already dived so deeply into the sea that the water has turned black, but why the sun can still be seen? I believe the “sun” symbolizes male’s strong power, and no matter where women go, the masculine power would consistently influence women. It also suggests that men are the “sun” of the society, without which other lives in the world cannot exist.

Rich also suggests the distinction between men and women are unimportant. When she describes herself as a mermaid, she writes that “We circle silently about the wreck, we dive into the hold. I am she: I am he.” 1970s is a time when the distinction between gender identity is clear. A person’s gender is determined once he or she is born, and at that time, people would never use “he” and “she” to refer to the same person. However, the diver is declaring herself as both a male or a female, which suggests her indifference to the gender identity.

Therefore, I believe that as one of Rich’s most notable works, “Diving into the Wreck” is a feminist poem as most of her other works. Clearly, Rich does not explicitly show the feminist attitude in the language of the poem. Instead, she puts plenty of narrations and descriptions in the poem, which are actually symbols and metaphors underneath.

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