Literary Devices, Aunt Jennifer's Tigers

 

Aunt jennifer’s tigers

By

Adrienne rich

1. Imagery:

Rich’s use of vivid imagery helps create strong visual contrasts between Aunt Jennifer’s reality and the world of the tigers she embroiders. The imagery of the tigers contrasts their freedom and vitality with Aunt Jennifer’s oppressive, tired existence.

• The tigers are described as “proud and unafraid,” “bright,” and “swift.” These images evoke a sense of power, confidence, and unbounded freedom. They symbolize qualities that Aunt Jennifer desires but cannot embody due to her confined life.

2. Symbolism:

Several symbols in the poem deepen its meanings and highlight the themes of gender oppression and personal confinement:

• The tigers symbolize freedom, strength, and independence. They are full of life, unafraid of anything. Their fierceness and vitality contrast sharply with Aunt Jennifer’s life, suggesting that while Aunt Jennifer cannot live as she wishes, she can imagine and create freedom through her art.
• The wedding band symbolizes the oppression and confinement Aunt Jennifer experiences in her marriage. The “massive weight” of the wedding band suggests the burden placed upon her by her husband and, more broadly, by societal norms. The ring’s weight is both literal and metaphorical, representing the emotional and physical constraints of her marriage and her role as a wife in a patriarchal society.
• Aunt Jennifer’s embroidery serves as a form of escape for her. It allows her to express her desire for strength and vitality through the tigers, but it also highlights the irony that her art is one of the few ways she can exercise freedom—albeit in a limited and confined way.

3. Alliteration:

Rich employs alliteration to emphasize the rhythmic flow of the poem and highlight key ideas:

• “Fingers flutter”

4. Metaphor:

• The wedding band is not just something physical but also a metaphor for Aunt Jennifer’s emotional and social imprisonment. It represents the constraints of her marriage and the patriarchal structure that governs her life. The “massive weight” of the wedding band suggests that it is not only physically heavy but also represents the psychological burden of societal expectations and traditional gender roles.

6. Rhyme and Structure:

The poem is written in three stanzas with a regular rhyme scheme (ABCB), which gives the poem a sense of regularity and formality. This formal structure mirrors the societal structures that confine Aunt Jennifer, reflecting the rigidity of her life. Despite the regularity, the content of the poem speaks to the discord between her outward life and her inner world, underscoring the tension between the constraints of her existence and the freedom she imagines through her art.

7. Irony:

The poem’s ending is marked by an ironic twist. While Aunt Jennifer is unable to escape the constraints of her life during her lifetime, the poem suggests that the tigers she embroiders will live on after her death, perhaps embodying the freedom she could not achieve. The final lines, “When Aunt Jennifer is dead, / Her terrified hands will lie / Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by,” create an ironic contrast between the tigers’ eternal vitality and Aunt Jennifer’s death and stagnation.

8.         Transferred Epithet:

It is used to create deeper emotional impact, add poetic complexity to the description and enhance visual imagery. E.g. “terrified hands”

9.         Synecdoche:

It is used to simplify, focus or intensify the meaning by creating symbolism and evoking imagery.