It is no secret that Adrienne Rich was an advocate for feminism. She once said, “It's exhilarating to be alive in a time of awakening consciousness; it can also be confusing, disorienting, and painful.” “Diving into the Wreck” is a work of Rich’s in which she describes the journey of a woman that is looking for a cause for the way her society views women. Rich uses the metaphor of a person diving down to a wreck to symbolize the deeper meaning of the journey. In doing so, several inanimate objects come into play that must be analyzed to determine what is really being represented.
In the first stanza of the poem, the woman is preparing for the dive, “First having read the book of myths.” Myths are usually a way of describing something, perhaps in this case the view of females in society. She also loads a camera, which suggests that she intends to take pictures for memories of where she is going. This alone tells the reader that she intends on coming back to where she is starting from (the ship). The diver puts on “absurd flippers” and a “grave and awkward mask.” The adjectives used to describe these things make them seem like a hindrance to her, something making her feel uncomfortable or holding her back. Rich chooses to describe each piece of equipment with “the” instead of “a,” which creates a sort of distance between the woman and the things. In a later stanza however, Rich begins using “my” for both the flippers and the mask, leading the reader to believe that their significance to the diver has changed. They now seem more a part of her as she is climbing down the ladder.
Rich sets up the last four lines of the first stanza with this feeling that the woman is somewhat afraid as she is getting her equipment on. The woman says, “I am having to do this…here alone.” In the next stanza, however, the ladder comes in, which seems to be a symbol of strength or bravery in the woman. Rich describes the ladder as being “always there, hanging innocently” and says “We know what it is for, we who have used it.” The tone of the stanza insinuates a sort of frustration with those who do not use their “strength” in saying that “otherwise it is a piece of maritime floss some sundry equipment.”
The woman then begins to take steps down the ladder with a bit of difficulty due to the flippers and mask that she has on, but once she enters into the “ocean,” which is like the scorn of society, the mask is what actually clears her vision. Even so, she begins to blend in with the underwater environment and forgets what she came for. Shortly after, she remembers that she came to explore “the wreck and not the story of the wreck the thing itself and not the myth.” She has read the book of myths and she knows that she wants to find a deeper meaning behind the way women are treated so that she will know how she can change peoples’ minds. In the next stanza, she says “I am she: I am he,” which is somewhat ambiguous. She refers to herself as a “mermaid” and also as “the merman in his armored body.” The reader gets a sense that this character being described feels a sense of beauty and strength, but also bravery and independent. During this time, for a woman to feel the strength of a man was unheard of. Rich is creating a uniform character that is reflected again later in the line “We are, I am, you are.”
The last stanza of the poem, in a way, pulls everything together. It becomes clear that the woman (possibly Rich) wants to take other women on the journey she has been on to educate everyone and create a new view of women. She writes “by cowardice of courage the one who find our way back to this scene carrying a knife, a camera a book of myths in which our names do not appear.” The reader notices that she alternates between singular and plural tenses, emphasizing the fact that she wants us to view the character universally, as a woman, man, or group, society as whole.
As one can see, Rich uses symbolism throughout the entire poem. It is interesting that there really is not any specific rhyme scheme; it is only made up of ten separate, lengthy stanzas. This gives the reader the idea that she is trying to tell a deeper story with all of the details. It seems as if the character that Rich creates here is actually her.
“Diving into the Wreck” is a poem that tells the story of a woman on a quest to fight for the rights of women. She does this through an analogy of a diver going into the sea to examine a “wreck.” She goes in with knowledge of the history of patriarchy that has existed and with protection and a desire to learn more to empower herself and eventually, others too. Like all struggles for rights or freedom, the woman has some challenges. She forgets at one point what she came for, and ends up getting everything together at the end when she suddenly becomes universal character.
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