CBSE Class 12 English Aunt's Jeniffer Tigers Notes Set B

About The Poet

Adrienne Rich (May 16, 1929 – March 27, 2012) was an American poet, essayist and radical feminist. She was called as one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century and was credited with bringing the oppression of women to the forefront of poetic discourse.

Summary

The poet starts with Aunt Jennifer’s visual tapestry of tigers who are fearless animals and they stay valiant in their environment. They are vibrant, coloured living in rich green environment. These tigers are living life with majesty as one would expect the tigers from the forests. There is a certainty and confidence in the way these tigers move.

But Aunt Jennifer is weak, feeble and captivated in contrast to the tigers she was knitting. She is suffering from physical and mental trauma. When Aunt Jennifer says that she finds the ivory needle hard to pull she tricks to reveal that she is facing hardship and trouble in her life. Her life has been tiring and hurtful and that her unhappy married life is overbearing and demanding. She even feels that the ring on her finger is a burdensome weight, which denotes that her husband is making her life miserable. She feels that her inner soul has been prisoned by the patriarchal society.

The poet in the last stanza brings in the contrasting picture. When she would die her hands will still reflect the terrors she lived in her life. Throughout her lifetime she suffered. But at the same time her tigers will remain the same courageous, fearless, free which would just be in contrast to the life she lived. They will hold the fort as the reflecting force against the male dominated society.