Diving Into This Poem- Before

Diving into a wreck could have a couple of meanings. One of them being “diving” into a problem and trying to find a solution. The other meaning could be venturing out into the unknown. Seeing as how Adrienne Rich was a feminist, both definitions would be most appropriate for this poem. Although the poem may appear to be about a woman deep sea diving to uncover a “mythical” ship filled with treasure, it’s true meaning is of a girl coming of age and awakening to find that she, like her fellow women, are living in a society dominated by males, and wishes to prove that females are equivalent to males.
In the beginning of the poem, the narrator seems a skeptical of certain aspects in life. The poem opens up stating that she is embarking on a journey to find out for herself whether or not a myth is true. The fact that she has to figure it out on her own provides evidence that she is uncertain about something. She also refers to her diving attire as “ absurd,” “grave,” and “awkward” (Rich). These words, in context of the poem, have a negative connotation, as though the clothes she is putting on are unusual and uncomfortable. At the end of the first stanza, the narrator makes a claim that she is alone on her quest. Her ambiguity resembles the same attitude that a young woman reflects when she is trying to understand her place in the world.
Rich then mentions a ladder that hangs off the side of the schooner. The ladder is the trigger to the narrator’s transition into uncovering who she is. Figuratively, and in general, a ladder is supposed to help you move upwards or progress towards a certain target of interest. However, the narrator uses the ladder to move down into the ocean, which is a little contradictory to the concept of a ladder. The fact that Rich uses the ladder to go down instead of up suggests conflicting ideas. As young adults, people like to question things such as authority and society, and when those thoughts begin to occur, people tend to discover mixed feelings about the world and their identities. The transition continues into the next stanza when Rich states her “flippers cripple [her]” as she is beginning to submerge into the sea where “there is no one to tell [her] when the ocean will begin”. As she goes deeper and deeper into the ocean, the narrator becomes overwhelmed with freedom and a new feeling begins to take over which changes the tone of the poem. The colors she sees when she goes deeper into the ocean fades darker and darker until it turns pitch black, like the unknown that was referenced before. All of a sudden, she feels powerful and free from superiority. Her “mask is powerful/ it pumps [her] blood with power” (Rich). She again refers to herself as being alone and claims that she has to learn how to “turn [her] body without force in the deep element” (Rich). Even though the narrator feels full of authority, she feels that she must be able to resist male superiority in her society, otherwise she will no longer feel liberated, and be forever trapped by man.
Remembering why she began her journey in the first place, she began to explore the wreck. In this context, the word wreck has a double meaning. In the poem, the poet is literally referring to the shipwreck that she had been searching for. However, the poet is also referring to the internal wreck that she finds within herself when she is struggling to find her beliefs. Later, the narrator claims to find something more permanent, which is referring to her take on life and society as well as the ship. Rich uses the words “damaged,” “worn,” and “threadbare” to describe the ship, which is describing how the narrator feels about herself in society.
The narrator then finds a place. This is where everything comes together for her and she becomes enlightened. It is then she begins to equal not only herself to man when she calls herself a “mermaid” and “merman” and claims “I am she: I am he” (rich). It’s also unique that Adrienne Rich would use the colon symbol, seeing as how it could also represent a ratio, by further proving the fact that women are equal to men. She even takes it a step further and considers all women equal to men when she switches from the phrase “I” to “we.” Throughout the rest of the poem, she does not refer to herself as singular, but as an entire unit, male and females alike,
In the last stanza, Adrienne Rich wrote, “We are, I am, you are/ by cowardice or 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.” By restating the first stanza in a different tone and perspective, Rich was trying to emphasize the pride she has for her sex and the lack of recognition that women have received in past and current events. She felt that women should be equally rewarded as men in order to be treated fairly.
Adrienne Rich was clearly a feminist as she had plainly expressed her feministic opinions of how women should be equally treated as men through a poem about deep sea diving and exploring into the unknown in order to find something more for her own self satisfaction during the time period of an ultimate sexist society.