Blog 4: Diving into the Wreck

During the late 1900’s, women writers, authors, and poets strived to make a presence for themselves in a men-dominated area. During this time, Adrienne Rich committed herself to the women’s movement despite a tough past. After years of marriage with her husband, Rich struggled with womanly expectations and left her husband; unfortunately, her ex-husband committed suicide a few years later and Rich came out as lesbian. The poem “Diving into the Wreck” is a metaphor for Rich’s unfortunate and confusing past. The wreck symbolizes Rich’s divorce and the tragic death of her husband while the dive represents the act of looking at the past.

One of the main components of the poem, the dive, is a metaphor for looking back at the past and deciding to take the journey to revisit those painful times of loneliness. The ladder in the poem represents the decision to take the trip to the past. Rich writes that the option to explore the past has always been an option, “The ladder is always there, hanging innocently.” Rich uses personification to show that the ladder is innocuous but also has the capability to transport people to a different place. As the person in the poem decides to go down the ladder, emotions of loneliness and fear are pronounced. Rich writes, “my flippers cripple me, I crawl like an insect down the ladder and there is no one to tell me when the ocean will begin.” For Rich, the option to finally look into her past is a difficult and completely individual journey. Taking the dive to explore what’s under the surface shows Rich’s hesitation with exploring her past.

The image of the wreck in the poem represents the suffering in Rich’s past from her divorce, husband’s suicide, and the decision to come out as a lesbian. Once the person in the poem enters the water, she says, “you breathe differently down here,” which signifies how exploring the past causes a big impact. Rich writes, “I came to see the damage that was done and the treasures that prevail.” Though Rich’s past was tragic, she explored the damage, to look for the benefits of the prevailing “treasures” or to possibly see the mistakes that were made. Some of the treasures that Rich could be referring to include coming out; if she had never divorced her husband, she never would have changed her sexual identity as a lesbian. As Rich continues through her past, she makes a point to nature, “we are the half-destroyed instruments that once held to a course the water-eaten log the fouled compass.” This shows that we are helpless against nature. Though the compass was to direct the ship to the final destination, nature changed course and the ship and compass sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Though Rich was probably expecting to live a normal life with her family, nature intervened and changed the course of her life.

Although Adrienne Rich’s later years of her life were content, her tragic few years were represented in “Diving into the Wreck.” The language in the poem points to a conceit of her divorce, husband’s suicide, and gender identity change. Exploring the past is proven to be a challenge for Rich, but is a necessity to see the good that came out of awful situations.