The mid twentieth century American poet Adrienne Rich was a product of a conservative Southern family. Rich's poem, Aunt Jennifer's Tigers, clearly reflects this gender struggle, for it is evident that it is a feminist poem in which the poet criticizes the male-dominated world for frightening and oppressing Aunt Jennifer, leaving her no alternative but to create an alternate world of freedom for herself with her sewing. The main theme of Aunt Jennifer's Tigers is to reveal the hidden, vibrant inner life of Aunt Jennifer, as expressed in the content and theme of her tapestry, in sharp contrast to the outer image of the terrified, trapped woman she seems to be due to the social and cultural expectations and demands of her time. With the use of similes, symbols, meter, structure, rhyme, connotation Rich created her poem, Aunt Jennifer's Tigers.
Adrienne Rich uses a number of similes and symbols in the poem to convey her theme. The tigers of course symbolize the freedom of spirit that she dreams of attaining but never achieves except in her dreams and her art. Aunt Jennifer is symbolic of women as a whole rather than one individual. However, Adrienne Rich seems to distance herself from the image of Aunt Jennifer by placing Aunt Jennifer in a separate generation from herself. In addition, the verb prance' is also used symbolically in the poem, both in the first stanza of the poem to describe the tigers in Aunt Jennifer's screen, and in the final line of the poem to create a proud, strong image of the tigers; so fittingly symbolic of Aunt Jennifer's dreams and desires for herself.
In terms of the meter, structure, and rhyme of the poem, Aunt Jennifer's Tigers Adrienne Rich utilizes quatrains, consisting of couplets, for a total of six sentences in twelve lines. The rhyme scheme in the poem is very basic: AABB CCDD EEFF, and the rhythm in the three stanzas of the poem isn't a regular beat but varies from line to line as necessary.
