Escape from Oppression

"Aunt Jennifer's Tigers" by Adrienne Rich tells of the repressed Aunt Jennifer who produces scenes representing freedom and fearlessness, but in reality is trapped and powerless. Only through her artistic expression is she able to find a temporary release from her entrapment. In "Trifles", Minnie Wright allows herself to be subjugated for thirty years before she frees her whole self, through drastic means that leads to a more permanent solution, murdering her husband. From a feminist perspective, these two works give very different examples of how a woman is the cast as the "nonsignificant other" (Bressler 144), but discovers a way out of her continual oppression by rejecting their insignificance.

Rich begins her poem by describing the tigers of Aunt Jennifer's tapestry. They are vibrant and powerful with no fear of men. One begins to feel that Aunt Jennifer, as the artist, must be a free spirit because she can dream of those tigers. They are above the men who want to hunt them and therefore out of reach. This confirms the feminist idea that women's minds are just as complex as men's and so their works of art should be appreciated beside that produced by men, not as inferior products: "both sexes are to be valued as creative, rational people who can all contribute to their societies and their world." (Bressler 153)

The second stanza introduces the reader to Aunt Jennifer. It stresses the struggle and determination it takes for Aunt Jennifer to create her work of art under the "massive weight of Uncle's wedding band." Aunt Jennifer is not only trapped by her husband, but as the wedding ring symbolizes, by the culture that reinforces the marriage. Her tigers are above men, but Aunt Jennifer is held down by her marr...

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...ties. They both feature the central figure as a woman being dominated by her husband. One woman, Aunt Jennifer remains the dutiful wife outwardly, while expressing her inner turmoil in the scenes of her tapestry. Her art is an expression of defiance towards male oppression and the idea that women are inferior artistically. The other, Minnie Wright, finds that she cannot continue to live in the isolation her husband has forced on her for the many years she has been subjected to it. Minnie finally rejects her husband's absolute power over her, which is another example, although extreme, of a woman rejecting the role of the suppressed female.

Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism. (3rd ed.) Upper Saddle River New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc. 2003

Schwiebert, John E. Reading and Writing from Literature. (2nd ed.) Boston New York: Houghton Mifflin. 2001