Feminist Interpretation of ‘Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers’ by Adrienne Rich

Abstract

“Being a woman is terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men.”

                                                                                                                                               - Joseph Conrad

Feminist literature is a process of self - discovery, self - assertion, and self – reliance. Margaret Fuller was the first American woman to assert her uniqueness and limitations in a patriarchal system in her book Women in the Nineteenth Century(1845). In the twentieth century Rebecca West, Virginia Woolf, Dorothy Richardson etc. imitated the feminist consciousness movement in literature. In America too this movement was gathering force. As a poet and theorist, Adrienne Rich has vast impact on contemporary American literature. This article tries to read the above poem with regards to Feminist concerns in it. Rich’s innate talents and her will to change gender biases is the main concern of this poem that this article will try to analyze.