Aunt Jennifer's Tiger - Adrienne Rich

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.

Aunt Jennifer's finger 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.

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.

MEANING OF DIFFICULT WORDS

1.      Prance – to spring from the hind legs; to move by springing, as a horse.

2.      Denizens – a) anything adapted to a new place, condition, etc., as an animal or plant   not indigenous to a place but successfully naturalized.

      b) an inhabitant; resident.

      c) a person who regularly frequents a place

3.      Sleek – smooth or glossy, as hair, an animal / well-fed or well-groomed.

4.      Chivalric - the sum of the ideal qualifications of a knight, includingcourtesy, 

generosity, valor, and dexterity in arms / gallant warriors or gentlemen

5.      Ivory – the hard white substance, a variety of dentin, composing the main part of the tusks of the elephant, walrus, etc.

6.      Ordeals – any extremely severe or trying test, experience, or trial.

7.      Panel – a distinct portion, section, or division of a wall, wainscot, ceiling, door, shutter, fence, etc., especially of any surface sunk below or raised above the general level or enclosed by a frame or border.

POETIC / LITERARY DEVICES

1.      Form  This poem is a formal, structured lyric.

2.      Structure  It contains three stanzas of four lines each

3.      Language Most of the words are short and simple everyday words. The sentences are simple in structure and all take two lines.

4.      Diction The unusual word ‘denizens’ stands out and it shows how special the tigers are, unlike how Aunt Jennifer feels about herself. The word ‘chivalric’ shows that the tigers are proud and charming. It means they treat women with respect. The repetition of ‘prance’ [parade] is interesting and emphasises the happy, confident life of the tigers.

5.      Full Stops and Commas Full stops are placed regularly at the end of every second line. The poem is controlled, just like its subject, Aunt Jennifer.

6.      Comparison The tigers are compared to knights from the time of chivalry in the middle ages.

7.      Imagery 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 the gold of ‘wedding band’.

8.      Metaphor The poet compares the yellow stripes of the tigers to a precious stone, topaz.

9.      Contrast [difference] The main contrasts are between nervous Aunt Jennifer and her confident tigers. Another contrast is between the strong yellow and green colours. The words ‘prancing’ and ‘fluttering’ contrast as well.

10.  Mood/Atmosphere Fear is the main atmosphere in Aunt Jennifer’s life of ‘ordeals’ where her fingers tremble and show terror.  An air of freedom and confidence dominates the atmosphere in her artistic creations. The men beneath the tree create an atmosphere of mystery.  The image of Aunt Jennifer’s corpse from the future is a bit eerie or creepy.

11.  Hyperbole [Exaggeration]  The poet exaggerates the weight of her husband’s wedding ring to make a point about how dominating he is. 

12.  Paradox [apparent contradiction]   Here a trembling and ‘mastered’ woman creates free and confident creatures in her artistic endeavours. ‘Fluttering’ fingers produce something that has ‘certainty’.

13.  Tone The tone appears to be positive and cheerful when the poet describes the tigers. See the comment on sibilance below. The tone becomes sad and even creepy at times in describing the life of Aunt Jennifer.

14.  Repetition The word ‘prance’ is repeated to emphasise the pride and freedom of the tigers. ‘Ringed’ echoes ‘wedding band’. There is repetition of various sounds as indicated in the next few bullet points.

15.  Rhyme Every pair of lines rhyme, like the ‘een’ sound in ‘screen’ and ‘green’ at the end of the first two lines. The rhyme pattern for the poem is: aabb ccdd  eeff. This rigid pattern mirrors the rigid life of Aunt Jennifer.

16.  Assonance [similar vowel sound repetition] Note the long ‘i’ sound in ‘find’ the ivory’. This creates a sad or mournful effect.

17.  Consonance [similar consonant sound repetition] Note the repeated ‘n’ sound in the first line and the  ‘f’ sound in the first line of the second stanza.

18.  Alliteration [repetition of consonant sounds at the start of nearby words] e.g ‘p’ in ‘prancing proud’ emphasises the feeling of confidence expressed in the tigers’ movements.

19.  Sibilance [repetition of ‘s’ sound] Note how the five ‘s’ sounds in the first line create a smooth opening, suggesting an air of confidence within the artificial world of the panel.

STANZA BY STANZA ANALYSIS

Stanza 1: The relative, Aunt Jennifer, makes a panel with images of tigers parading proudly across it.  The tigers are free, unlike their maker. Her panel contains animals that are happier and more confident than she is. There is a ‘certainty’ about them that their maker lacks in herself. Aunt Jennifer paints confident, proud tigers. They are assured and confident dwellers, ‘denizens’, of their green world. ‘Denizen’ suggests independent citizen. It would seem that Jennifer is not an independent citizen of her own world. She is instead a wife, weighed down by duties as we learn in the second stanza. Jennifer uses sharp and contrasting colours, sharp yellow against a green background. Her tigers are as bright as topaz, a yellow gem. Her picture contains an image of men under a tree, though the proud tigers show no fear of the men. This is mentioned to show that they differ from Jennifer, who lives in fear of her husband to some extent. The tigers remind the poet of knights, full of courtesy and style. Chivalric men respected their women and acted kindly towards them. Again, this seems to contrast with how ‘Uncle’ behaved towards Aunt Jennifer according to the second stanza.

Stanza 2: The poet describes Aunt Jennifer’s nervous hands struggling to pull the wool with her ivory needle. The word ‘fluttering’ suggests trembling. We get the impression of a frail woman who finds it hard to pull the needle. It is interesting that if her needle is made of ivory it may have come from an elephant’s tusk. Ivory is a bit like topaz, a precious material. As ivory involves the killing of elephants for their valuable tusks, it would seem that Jennifer may not care much for tigers in the wild or know much about their reality. Thus, her artwork is unrealistic. Perhaps the poet feels it is a pointless and empty type of art. The poet humorously suggests that Aunt Jennifer’s fingers find it hard to hold the weight of her wedding ring and then pull the needle at the same time. The wedding band is another reference to a precious substance, probably gold. By mentioning that it is ‘Uncle’s wedding band’, the poet suggests that Uncle owns Jennifer too and that as a female she is the property of her husband. The words ‘massive’ and ‘heavily’ suggest Aunt Jennifer lives a demanding sort of life in which she has to attend to her husband’s needs and fulfill his commands. As a result she is somewhat worn out in her old age.

Stanza 3: The poet predicts that, when Aunt Jennifer dies, her hands will look worn from all her needlework as well as the hard time she has trying to please her husband. Aunt Jennifer is ‘ringed’, trapped in her marriage and controlled like an animal. Her husband is her master. Her artwork will live on after her as a reminder of the dreams she never fulfilled.

CRITICAL APPRECIATION

Adrienne Rich's "Aunt Jennifer Tigers" is a poem that concerns itself mainly with a woman struggling to accept the indignities of her daily life while being insatiably focused on attaining some sense of immortality once that life ends. Aunt Jennifer must find a way to deal with her unhappy and submissive station in life, and she does so by sewing exciting and memorable works of art. Sewing is her escape and in this case she's escaping to a jungle where wild animals rule the land and never show fear. The tigers created by Aunt Jennifer are beasts demanding respect from even their predators. This demand for respect is something that Aunt Jennifer is incapable of doing for herself. In the meantime, she will deal with her problems by escaping from them.

This escape into her art is shown vividly in the opening stanza of the poem where the imagery is vibrant and alive and shows what Aunt Jennifer is capable of doing; it also provides a glimpse into Aunt Jennifer's subconscious in its portrayal of animals who don't allow themselves to be victimized by anyone. The tigers are literally prancing across the screen. The image of something prancing immediately brings to mind a being that is confident and self-assured and happy; all things that Aunt Jennifer is not. The tigers are not just simply tigers, of course. They are "Bright topaz denizens of a world of green" (2). The use of colors implies that Aunt Jennifer's tigers and their land are more vital and enjoy a sense of freedom far greater than she. Yellow connotes the sun and fierce energy, while green reminds one of spring and rebirth. Aunt Jennifer is longing for both energy and rebirth. She cannot find it at home so she goes on journeys into her sewing. The tigers are foreign and that also brings speculation that Aunt Jennifer would like to travel, which is just another form escape. That the tigers sense no fear of the predatory hunters is key. The assumption here is that Aunt Jennifer is afraid of her own predator: her husband. He has hunted her and captured her and keeps her in a cage from which her only escape is her sewing. The tigers, on the other hand, do not live in fear. No, rather they pace about as if they were kings of their domain. They are certain of their place in the world and will allow no one or nothing to interfere. The tigers are to Aunt Jennifer the ultimate creatures of self-actualization. They are exactly what she wishes she could be herself. And in creating them so resplendently, they will live on long after their creator has passed on.

Aunt Jennifer is doing what she can to cope with an unhappy lifestyle and this melancholy is made apparent in the second stanza of the poem, which deals in ambiguous images of rapidity and heaviness to symbolize the need to escape from the stagnancy of her marriage. Aunt Jennifer's fingers are "fluttering through her wool" (5) in the first line of the stanza and this suggests that Aunt Jennifer is trying to sew as fast as her fingers will allow. Complex questions arise from this simple description of Aunt Jennifer sewing. Why does she need to create something so fast? Exactly what is she afraid of that would spur her on so? Perhaps her fear is that she will not live long enough to finish the creation. Perhaps she fears she will be interrupted in the middle of her work. She is trying to do it as fast as she can, but then begin the images of weight, of carrying a burden. The fact that the "ivory needle is hard to pull" (6) insinuates that she's been sewing for a long time. In fact, sewing is probably what she does most of the day when she's not caring for her husband. The marriage to the speaker's Uncle is perhaps Aunt Jennifer's greatest weight. After all, "The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band / Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand" (7-8). This bulk is probably more emotional and mental than physical. It is doubtful that Aunt Jennifer's wedding band itself weighs down her hand so much that she can't sew as fast as she'd like. The weight is probably one in which her marriage didn't turn out as she planned. Perhaps she wanted children and never had any. Certainly no mention is made in the poem of the speaker having cousins. Aunt Jennifer's marriage has most likely turned out to be her biggest disappointment and one that she would probably even like to escape. And for at least a little while escape she does, right into her sewing.

The final stanza argues for the successful grasping of a sense of immortality so eagerly sought by Aunt Jennifer. This final portion of the poem contains imagery that reflects back on the first two stanzas and completes the three-tiered approach to the poem as a consideration of the life-spirit of someone who has not led the life they wanted contrasted with the bid for a satisfactory afterlife. The stanza begins with a look forward to when Aunt Jennifer will no longer be alive and creating her artistic sewing pieces. The first line pointedly shows that Aunt Jennifer had terrified hands which "will lie / Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by" (9-10). The line clearly harkens back to the second stanza and its dealings with the burdens Aunt Jennifer lives under. What could possibly have terrified her hands? And what ordeals was she mastered by? The most obvious answer is made by connecting the ordeals back with the heavy weight of her wedding band spoken of in the second stanza. Aunt Jennifer is more than likely abused-at least emotionally-by her husband. She is quite literally mastered by her husband. Such is the need for escape into her art. The final two lines of the stanza-and the poem-reflect back on the very opening line. The tigers are still in the panel that she made and they continue to prance, "proud and unafraid (12). The tigers that she fought so hard to create despite the overwhelming burden of her life will, indeed, continue to prance forever. By the end of the poem, Aunt Jennifer has fulfilled her need and achieved her own little sense of immortality. Her life was not in vain, she created something out of nothing, something that will live on well after she is dead and buried.

The structure of the play "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers" is built upon the give and take of showing a woman's ability to create an everlasting work of art while dealing with the abject humiliation of a living a life that is built on worries and woe. In three small stanzas of just four lines each, the poem craftily builds toward the welcome conclusion that no matter how much life has to dish out to a person and bring a person down, each of us can still achieve some small measure of respect and immortality if we just have the discipline to do what we know we can do well. If a person can find out what it is that he does well, he can achieve it and create for himself something that will last long after he have created it. Aunt Jennifer successfully beat back the load that she was forced to carry and created a small wedge of life everlasting for herself.

READING MATERIAL

Themes

1. Marriage is unequal due to male domination/Inequality

The woman at the centre of the poem, Aunt Jennifer, is a nervous and fearful wife. She lacks inner conviction or ‘certainty’, unlike the tigers she portrays. Aunt Jennifer is ‘mastered’ in her life. She lives a life of inequality. She is so nervous that her fingers ‘flutter’ through the wool she is using in her tapestry or panel. The poet portrays the marriage of Jennifer as an unhappy one for her. Aunt Jennifer 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’. It ‘sits heavily’ on her hand because he dominates her life. Her life with her husband is desctibed as a life of ‘ordeals’.  It is shown that Jennifer is terrified in her marriage. Her husband may be fiercer to her than the tigers she produces in her artwork.  The poem therefore provides a negative picture of marriage. The poem is probably saying that the ‘Uncle’ or husband is behaving like a tiger, and the tigers are ‘chivalric’ like the husband should be. Each world is the reverse of what it should be.

2. The world of art is happier than the real world/Dream versus Reality

Aunt Jennifer’s hobby is making designs and pictures from wool. Jennifer produces wool tapestries that she places on panels. The creatures she places there are free and proud, the opposite to herself. She is ‘ringed’ or mastered in marriage and therefore she is not free, but controlled.  It seems that she creates a happier looking world than the one she lives in. She makes precise and brightly coloured pictures like the sharp yellow tigers of the poem, pictured against a green background. These bright contrasting colours are probably much more vivid than Jennifer’s everyday world. Her artistic work will live on after she dies, as, according to the poet, her tigers will ‘go on prancing’. The figures she creates are stronger and happier than she is. They are proud and ‘prance’ about, unlike their creator, who is nervous and fears her husband. The word ‘prance’ or parade contrasts sharply with ‘fluttering’, meaning trembling. The tigers do not fear the men the aunt places under some trees in her tapestry. Therefore, the imaginary tigers produced by Aunt Jennifer live a type of proud and free life that she can only dream about. It is a ‘chivalric’ world, one where gentlemen treat women with great respect. Yet this is also a false world, as real tigers live out a battle for survival of the fittest, where the strongest dominate. Perhaps Aunt Jennifer uses art as an escape from her troubles. In her artwork Jennifer imagines the kind of life she would have liked.

*** 

The tigers display in art the values that Aunt Jennifer must repress or displace in life: strength, assertion, fearlessness, fluidity of motion. And the poem's conclusion celebrates the animal images as a kind of triumph, transcending the limited conditions of their maker's life. Accepting the doctrine of "ars longa, vita brevis," Rich finds in her character's art both persistence and compensation; she sees the creations as immortalizing the hand that made them, despite the contrary force of the oppressive structure of Aunt Jennifer's conventional marriage, as signified by the ring that binds her to her husband. This doctrine is utterly consonant with what was, according to Rich, "a recurrent theme in much poetry I read [in those days]. . . the indestructibility of poetry, the poem as vehicle for personal immortality" (Blood 168). And this more or less explicit connection helps show how deeply implicated Rich herself was in Aunt Jennifer's situation and her achievement, despite the "asbestos gloves" of a distancing formalism that "allowed me to handle materials I couldn't pick up barehanded" (Lies 40-41).

The problem, however, is that the tigers are clearly masculine figures--and not only masculine, but heroic figures of one of the most role-bound of all the substructures of patriarchy: chivalry. Their "chivalric certainty" is a representation by Aunt Jennifer of her own envisioned power, but it is essentially a suturing image, at once stitching up and reasserting the rift between her actual social status an her vision. Aunt’s name, after all, echoes with the sound of Queen Guinevere's; her place in chivalry is clear. Her tigers are only Lancelots, attractive because illicit, but finally seducing her to another submission to the male. So long as power can be envisioned only in terms that are culturally determined as masculine, the revolutionary content of the vision, which was all confined to a highly mediated and symbolic plane in any case, will remain insufficient. Indeed, the fact that assertion against the patriarchy is here imagined only in terms set by the patriarchs may be seen as this poem's version of the tigers' "fearful symmetry." And the "Immortal hand or eye" that framed their symmetry is not Aunt Jennifer's framing her needlework, but patriarchy's, framing Aunt Jennifer.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/adrienne-rich

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/rich/tigers.htm

http://www.skoool.ie/examcentre_sc.asp?id=4734

http://voices.yahoo.com/aunt-jennifers-tigers-analysis-adrienne-richs-752159.html?cat=38