Upon reading up on Adrienne Rich and learning that she was a lesbian I came to the conclusion that Diving into the Wreck is a poem that tells the story of exploration and finding of one’s self through the use of symbolism. The poem talks about a diver who is searching the sea for a wreck and any potential treasure it may contain. The sea here represents the mind and the diver is diving into a sea of memories, the wreck possible representing a specific bad memory or experience. “First the air is blue and then it is bluer and then green and then black” as the diver delves deeper and deeper into the memories it may be harder to remember older memories or that these memories are dark and painful. However not all the memories are bad, “And now: it is easy to forget what I came for among so many who have always lived here” the diver here is reminiscing about the different people the diver has encountered and the events they have shared together. “I came to see the damage that was done and the treasures that prevail” if the wreck does represents a bad memory/experience then the purpose of exploring this particular memory is to go through it, study it, and learn from it. By learning from it, the diver gains the treasure, the knowledge that might help if the diver were to go experience the situation once again. With the knowledge that Rich was a lesbian and knowing that being gay in her time period was no easy thing lead me to think that the “book of myths” mentioned in the poem refers to one’s true self. “The thing I came for:the wreck and not the story of the wreck the thing itself and not the myth”the diver was here looking through the memories to find his true self who he buried deep in his mind and to salvage it and to bring it up back to the surface.
Tag Archives: Diving
A Sea of Symbolism
At first glance “Diving into the Wreck” by Adrienne Rich was a confusing poem. However, at a closer inspection and research about the author, I realized that this poem is filled with symbolism, such as the ocean, the wrecked ship and the book of myths. Many of the symbols can be linked with feminism and society.
If we decide to view the ocean as society, we can see the reason why Rich compared the wetsuit to “body armor.” Assuming the diver is a woman, she would need the armor to protect herself from society and its “pressure”. “First the air is blue and then / it is bluer and then green and then / black I am blacking out and yet / my mask is powerful it pumps my blood with power / the sea is another story.” The water getting darker and darker is the female diver getting deeper and deeper into societal pressures. Even with this “armor” it is still hard to adjust to the pressures surrounding her. That being said, she manages to keep consciousness because of her equipment, she does not give into society.
The drowned face on the wrecked ship at the bottom of the water is a symbol of other women who have “drowned” in the pressures of society, “whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes / whose breasts still bear the stress.” These are the women who have conformed to the ways that others want them to act and behave. They could not make their way back to the surface.
Lastly, at the beginning of the poem, there was a reference to a book of myths that the diver had read but no clues were given to what it meant. During the exploration of the wrecked ship, Rich wrote: “the wreck and not the story of the wreck / the thing itself and not the myth.” This event explained that the book of myths was a book about the shipwreck and thus about the women who drowned. It also explained why at the end of the poem after the diver resurfaced, checked in the book and found nothing: “a book of myths / in which / our names do not appear.” Her name, their names (whoever they are), did not appear on this book of drowned women because they were able to survive the pressure of the water.