Feminist Criticism In Adrienne Rich's Diving Into The Wreck

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Adrienne Rich’s Diving into the Wreck confesses the oppressive conditions behind womanhood and Rich’s radical feminist protest to demand equal place in the “book of myths.” Being forced into the rot and damage in the darkness, Rich must confront a mission of conformity. With political and personal righteousness, Rich challenges the “wreck” that is the reality of patriarchal control. Her feminist point of view shows defiance towards the force men have held over woman throughout history.
Rich’s work was not exclusive to the 1960’s and 1970’s, but such pieces were flooded with political and personal righteousness, and further empowered by feminism. (cite 1) Her identity as a lesbian during the period was an additional factor of personal rage, …show more content…

The social roles and expectations that dominate a woman’s life are so demanding that Rich must learn to turn her “body without force.” She is pushed to internalize standards set by this force, but still finds the traces of herself that remained true. There has been damage caused by oppressive demands, but Rich finds harmony between her masculine and feminine qualities. She combats the standards that have left her as a “wreck,” and refers to herself and all women who have been damaged by such standards as “half-destroyed instruments. Used up by society’s expectations, Rich rejects the standards she was forced to dive into. Rich demonstrates a protest against the dominating patriarchal system which excludes women from the book of myth. A history written for men by men, views woman’s accomplishments as far less important. As Rich struggles through the control of man, she combats the dismissal of women in history. Rich’s frustration with misrepresentation of women in history is more clearly developed in her later works, A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far. She asserts that women must take authority over their own history and representation to avoid false “myths.” Rich criticizes patriarchal media and historical integrity, believes women must retell their history by their own means. In A Wild Patience, she begins to "demystify false images of the past and false representations of women's lives.” ( cite

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