Repblica Bolivariana de Venezuela

Universidad Central de Venezuela

Facultad de Humanidades y Educacin
Escuela de Idiomas Modernos
Contemporary English Literature

Images of a Womans Life in the XX Century

An Analysis of Adrianne Richs Snapshots of a Daughter-in-law

Andrs Gonzlez

Caracas, October, 2016

This is a man's world
But it wouldn't be nothing
Not one little thing
Without a woman or a girl
James Brown (1933 - 2006)

The second half of the 20th century can be considered in America the age of the
minorities. In a country with economic growth, the massification of the media machinery,
opened arms towards multiculturalism, and yet marked with discrimination, social injustice,
demonstrations, and segregation, a plethora of civil movements were beginning to take
shape: the civil rights movement of the Afro-Americans the first and most important
minority at the time would signify, in the history of modernism, a universal struggle for
recognition and the fight for equality; in New York, Latin-Americans would change the
musical landscape with the appearance of salsa as a term that, more than just music, would
revolutionize and organize the diverse latino tendencies under the same flag, symbolizing
the search of a unified identity through the arts; and San Francisco would become the
headquarters of the first national lesbian organization and one of the many centers of the
gay rights movement that would lead in the 70s to the election of the first openly gay
politician, Harvey Milk.
Feminism also gained popularity and a change of perspective during this time,
though it was already around since the final decades of the 19 th century and the firsts of the
20th with authors such as Virginia Woolf and Simone de Beauvoir. The movement of this
early period is defined as the first wave of feminism, and according to Raman Selden, Peter
Widdowson and Peter Brooker in their work A Readers Guide to Contemporary Literary
Theory, was concerned principally with womens material disadvantages compared to
men (2005:118). However, it is in the 70s, they explain, when feminist criticism shifts to
the politics of reproduction, to women experience, to sexual difference and to
sexuality, as at once a form of oppression and something to celebrate. (2005:121). It
would be during this period, defined as the second wave of feminism, in which Adrianne
Rich develops much of her style as a writer. A poet and a essayist born in 1929, she is
considered by The Guardian newspaper as one of Americas most powerful writers
(2012). Her third collection published in 1963, titled Snapshots of a Daughter-in-law the
object of this analysis signified a substantial change in style.
Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law is a ten-part poem, with each part composed of an
uneven number of lines and stanzas, in which Rich gives us an insight of the difficulties of
being a woman in the American society of the 1950s, and the effects of patriarchal
structures on womens intellect. The ten parts full with references to important feminist
writers, female figures in general and quotes of other literary works that are deliberately
altered in the poem unfold as unrelated images of day-to-day life with no chronological

order, in which the personae addresses two women that are perceived as the main characters
of the work: a daughter-in-law, who we may speculate personifies the author and
portrays her perspective as a sort of narrator; and an older woman that is criticized by the
latter since she submissively complies to what society expects of her.
The description of the older woman is given from the very beginning. The speaker
addresses her using the personal pronoun you, which aggressively builds tension as if a
discussion between them were taking place. A before and after is established in the old
womans life: You, once a belle in Shreveport/ with henna-colored hair, skin like a
peachbud/ still have your dresses copied from that time [] Your mind now, moldering/
like wedding-cake/ heavy with useless experience, rich/ with suspicion, rumor, fantasy.
The image of a piano is used to symbolize the innocence and purity of the older womans
early stages of life, in contrast with a moldering wedding cake used to define her mind,
which is seen by the daughter-in-law as a waste. This highlights a critic to the lost potential
regarding the intellect of women, as a result of womens imposed roles by a society that
does not allow further self-development.
The daughter-in-law also describes herself in many instances throughout the poem,
but instead of using the personal pronoun I, she speaks of herself in third person, creating a
distance between the narrator and the literary character. This also seems to be a tool
deliberately used to stay in ambiguity and create suspense, compelling the reader to identify
through hints, in terms of description and the events presented in the poem, which character
is being referred to. The second part of the poem, for example, focuses on a woman, whom
is whispered by angels: Banging the coffee-pot into the sink/ she hears the angels chiding
and looks out/ past the raked gardens to the sloppy sky/ Only a week since They said: Have
no patience.
Angels, spiritual beings that are closer to god, come to symbolize intelligence and
knowledge. They function in the poem as guides, who like conscience counsels the
character in what is just and morally correct. Taking this image into consideration, even
though there is no explicit evidence in order to determine the identity of the character in the
third part, we may argue that she is indeed the daughter-in-law, who is portrayed
throughout the work as a contrast to the older women. Both characters seem to reflect the
two stances of women in the American society of the mid 20 th century: on the one hand, the
submissive who chooses to endure the consequences of a patriarchal society (the older
woman); on the other, the subversive who challenges it (the daughter-in-law). This
opposition becomes more apparent in the second stanza of the third part, in which an actual
discussion takes place: Two handsome women, gripped in argument/ each proud, acute,
subtle, I hear scream/ across the cut glass and majolica/ like Furies cornered from their
prey

Other symbolisms in the poem are portrayed through the images of everyday
objects: a coffee pot, old knives, a heated iron, mildewed orange flowers. These utensils are
the representation of the gender-imposed role of women, whose main function in the
American society and we may risk by stating in the whole world also was to provide to
the head of the family food to eat and clothes to wear. This imposition, however, does not
slow down the impetus of the daughter-in-law for knowledge in the following passage:
[] reading while waiting/ for the iron to heat/ writing, My Life had stooda Loaded
Gun/ in that Amherst pantry while the jellies boil and scum/ or, more often/ iron-eyed and
beaked and purposed as a bird/ dusting everything on the whatnot every day of life.
The image of a loaded gun showed through a verse by Emily Dickinson in the
previous passage we find particularly interesting, since it is closely connected to the idea of
intellect and knowledge as a means of liberation against oppression. In fact, there are a
variety of references throughout the literary work that are related to this topic: of figures
related to the intellectual and artistic world such as Frederic Chopin, Alfred Corton and
Diderot; of classic literary works in Latin such as Ciceros Pro Rege Deiotaro and Horaces
odes; of excerpts of French and English poems such as Charles Baudelaires Au Lecteur,
and Thomas Campion; and of other feminist writers such as Mary Wollstonecrafts
Thoughts of the Education of Daughters and Simone de Beauvoirs Le Deuxime Sexe. This
transversal nature of the literary work grants the reading experience a palette of ideas that
reinforces the subversive attitude of the author against a society, whose deep intellectual
areas are mostly dominated by men. In this sense, knowledge is a revolutionary act through
which Adrianne Rich, along other feminists, exercises critic and challenges the American
establishment. It is a weapon which, conceived in a mans world, is used by women in a
calibanistic way.
Sex is also present in the literary work as a need that has to be satisfied: A thinking
woman sleeps with monsters/ The beak that grips her, she becomes.. This verses allude to
the characteristics of power exercised by the dominant classes. The Italian sociologist
Antonio Gramsci had already established that though a dominant group could influence the
everyday thoughts, expectations, and behavior of the rest of society by directing the
normative ideas, values, and beliefs through academic and political institutions, the nature
of this power had to be also consensual: in order for a hegemony to take place, the
dominated classes of society must also accept it. This is particularly true in the dynamics of
power exercised over women since psychoanalytically speaking women reassure this
domination because they are taught that way. As a result, they become agents of the
establishment, the very same enemy they are fighting against.
Nature is also an image that is mentioned by the personae in several stanzas of this
work: And Nature/ that sprung-lidded, still commodious/ steamer-trunk of tempora and
mores/ gets stuffed with it all: the mildewed orange-flowers/ the female pills, the terrible

breasts/ of Boadicea beneath flat foxes heads and orchids. The fact that is capitalized
gives us the hint that it personifies a character in the poem. In fact, one of the most common
counterarguments that has been used against feminists in history is related to nature and
biology. That is further explained by Raman Selden, Peter Widdowson and Peter Brooker:
Arguments which treat biology as fundamental and which play down socialization have
been used mainly by men to keep women in their place. The old Latin saying Tota mulier
in utero (Women is nothing but a womb) established this attitude early. If a womans
body is her destiny, then all attempts to question attributed sex-roles will fly in the face of
the natural order. (2005:121)
Moreover, in the sixth part of the poem the personae questions natures role in the
realization of the patriarchal structures of society by the daughter-in-law: [] Pinned
down/ by love, for you the only natural action/ are you edged more keen/ to prise the
secrets of the vault? has Nature shown/ her household books to you, daughter-in-law/ that
her sons never saw?. This passage seems to evoke an internal discussion of the narrator,
who struggles with knowledge as both a means of liberation but also a burden that feminists
have to carry. Truth is, in this way, though a path to the ultimate freedom from the shackles
of phalocracy and male oppression, a way of life also marked by hardships and battle.
Finally, the last stanzas of the poem are dedicated to the never-ending struggle of
feminism, portrayed by the path that the daughter-in-law has to walk through: Her mind
full to the wind, I see her plunge/ breasted and glancing through the currents/ taking the
light upon her/ at least as beautiful as any boy. This ending, even though that
acknowledges the difficulties that feminists have to endure, is also marked positively by the
beauty of fighting for equality. Whether Richs last verses are pessimistic or optimistic
regarding the outcome of feminism, it is not clear and it does not have to. Either way, she
teaches us the value and meaning of standing up in protest for recognition.

Sources:

Selden, Raman et al (2005) A Readers Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. Pearson

Education Limited: Harlow

The Guardian (2012) Adrienne Rich, award-winning poet and essayist, dies aged 82.
Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/mar/29/adrienne-rich-poetessayist-dies