"Aunt Jennifer's Tigers" by Adrienne Rich is a poem on an outside perspective of a woman who is going through a marriage without love and is being held back by her husband. She is only to fulfill her dreams through her needle work. She had to settle for a marriage that she did not want or enjoy as it was going on. In a time where women could not verbally speak up against the daily tribulations Rich wrote a poem in the mid-nineteenth century standing up alone in what she believed in. In the male dominated society, feeling trapped and oppressed, she only longs for freedom and independence.
In the first stanza Aunt Jennifer is introduced in the third person. She does not talk for herself. This may symbolize how women were unable to stand up for themselves and express their point of view in society. She uses her needlework as sublimation from the heartaches she faces from society. The tigers symbolize the freedom of spirit that she dreams of attaining. In the line "They do not fear the men beneath the tree" the persona is trying to compare the tigers to women as a whole. The tigers walk around in "certainty" unlike women who fall subject under the men in society. The tiger's description is colorful, vivid, and strong in their world. These are not traits that would fall under describing Aunt Jennifer. The poem does not refer to Aunt Jennifer as an individual but rather as women as a whole by placing Aunt Jennifer in a separate generation from herself. .
Aunt Jennifer is weighted down by her husband. In the poem the death of Jennifer still will not bring closure nor change her role in a patriarchal society. Death is eternal; the idea of her lying in her grave still trembling, and carrying duties of a wife show how weak and inferior she felt through her life. "The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand" signifies that she had a tough marriage and felt that her husband held her back.