The poem ‘Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers’ is a very short poem written by Adrienne Rich during the latter half of the 20th century, it actually deals with the ordeals a woman faces during her married life. One would like to think that it was something that used to happen in the 20th century and women have advanced a lot thereafter. Have they, now? A nice food for thought!
Adrienne Rich’s Aunt Jennifer is embroidering. She has created a group of tigers prancing across a meadow with superb confidence, while a group of men are watching them, apprehensively from the shade of a tree. These magnificent creatures ‘pace in a sleek chivalric certainty’. But the hands, that are creating them are fluttering nervously, barely able to hold the needle. What can be the reason for this nervousness but the atrocities Aunt Jennifer has been suffering in her marital life with ‘the uncle’? The wedding ring on her fingers is heavy with the harrowing experiences she suffered in her conjugal existence. The poet is of opinion that this burden will follow her even to her grave. Her hand will lie in her grave ‘still ringed’ with the burden of her past sufferings.
On the other hand the tigers she has created in her embroidery will continue to strut confidently in ‘chivalric’ grace. The chivalric tigers are contrasted with the cruel and inconsiderate man in her life. The image of the tigers is majestic as well as awe-inspiring.
It is an accepted fact that bullies are cowards. They try to intimidate others, out of fear. They feel threatened by someone and hence strive to coerce them. That may be the case with the ‘uncle’ also. But the tigers are so sure of their supremacy that they strut about fearlessly while the men watch. Aunt Jennifer seems to take special pleasure in making the men watch the fearless tigers parade before them. Here she is achieving something at least symbolically. The tigers symbolize her secret longing to put men down in some way. As the tigers are sure of their position they can afford to be chivalric. This is where the poet indirectly questions the uncle’s competence, and gives the reader a reason to doubt his superiority over his wife.
The pathetic figure of the woman who is terrified of her husband so much so that she cannot even keep her hands steady for an embroidery job, evokes pity in the readers, and later when the poet says that even in her grave she lies with the irrevocable burden of her marital life, the reader once again realizes the enormity of the situation and whole heartedly sympathizes with Aunt Jennifer and innumerable women she represents.
But the image that lingers in the mind of the reader is the image of a pride of golden tigers prancing majestically across a green meadow, ignoring a group of ‘mere’ human beings under a tree – probably cowering in their inadequate safety.