Adrienne Rich - What Does a Woman Need to Know
Adrienne Rich associates power with a lot of different things in her essay. She associates it with "exploiting the powerless -- including women and children." Power according to her means exhibiting force mainly against the women. Moreover she stresses that power has been historically linked to the "use of force, rape, with stockpiling of weapons," and the accumulation of wealth. I agree with Adrienne that power is associated with accumulation of wealth and weapons. Today or in the yesteryears it has always been seen that the people in society or nations globally, who have wealth and military strength are always more powerful and they exhibit an oppressing force towards the others. However power is not used or defined as exhibiting force against the women. I would more agree that power has been associated with the use of force against the weaker components of society and this can include men, women and children.
The basic need for women stressed by Rich in front of a class of graduating women in 1979, is the need for an education. She further stresses that it is a woman's right to gain knowledge of their heritage and female roots because if denied such an education, she feels that women will become completely powerless. She wants education in universities to be without any bias and to include any positive and creative roles played by women in history. She wants women to take control and get trained with independence research and data evaluation and emphasizes that most of what women would learn would be self-taught. That kind of an experience or learning cannot be achieved by a university education. Rich feels that lack of such knowledge would result in women living without context and vulnerable and exposed to whatever fantasies the males of the society would project.
Rich describes her envy of a barren woman. A barren woman can be a woman who can't have children or a woman who simply does not have children. It can mean that the woman has chosen not the have children. If the barren woman is someone who has chosen not to have children, Rich contends that she may regret not have children and such a regret is a luxurious
However, Rich does not title the poem "Aunt Jennifer's Ring." Rather, Rich uses the title "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers" to offer a sense of hope, transformation, and overcoming. Patriarchy can be overcome with self-awareness. Aunt Jennifer is creating embroidery or other weaving technique, which is representative of traditional women's work. The image on Aunt Jennifer's wool is that of tigers who "prance" and "do not fear the men beneath the
Sympathy," "Digging," "For A Lady I Know," and "Metaphors" are examples of poems that exemplify and uses poetic elements in order to capture the message the poet wants the reader of the poem to achieve. In essence, this paper will talk about the poetic elements and use of persona, speaker, and voice to interpret and understand the message of the poems that have been mentioned. "Sympathy" by Paul Lawrence
Her letters to Franklin belie a thoughtful introspection that Franklin seems incapable of entirely. It is Franklin who is oblivious to the role of father. Eva is expected to take control of all nurturing activities in the family, leaving daddy to be playtime manager. Kevin likely loses respect for his father, who becomes so completely distant emotionally as to never assume an ounce of responsibility for his son's behavior.
Women Creating Culture: Sofonisba Anguissola, Mary Wollstonecraft and Emily Dickinson Introduction While the patriarchal heritage of the West commonly references the contributions of men to history and culture, the West would not be what it is today without the contributions to culture made by women as well. This paper will look at the contributions of three women in particular—Sofonisba Anguissola, the Italian Renaissance painter whose skill caught the attention of Michelangelo and
Aunt Jennifer's Tigers" & "Marriage" The two poems Aunt Jennifer's Tigers by Adrienne Rich and Marriage by Gregory Corso are both focused on the social happenings that are experienced in our daily lives. The subject matter of both poems is grounded on marriage as an institution and the societal view of marriage and the view of the people who are involved or supposed to be involved in the marriage. Both
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