Help Me with this poem? Please?

Question

Okay I have to analyze it for school and explore the tone and purpose.... It's Adrienne Rich's "Diving into the Wreck." Like supposedly, it's not even about diving into a shipwreck. It's about women's rights. I don't possibly see how anything in this poem has anything to do with women's rights? Can anyone help explain this poem to me please?
Thanks!!

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMI…

Answer 1

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Well...

The wreck seems to be a) the enviroment women are put into and b) what remains of a woman after experiencing society's demands, expectations of a women and the resulting limitations. Putting on the diving equipment seems to signify cloaking oneself in the disguise of a woman which hides the individual inside.

I could go on. It's not my kind of a poem. I think society limits everyone in many ways. Heck, I like wearing a dress sometimes. Yes, I'm a woman.

Answer 2

OK Gabe, I'm not going to do the whole thing for you. But here's the first stanza, OK?

When she talks about putting on her ridiculous costume? It's about how women were forced to play these parts, put on these roles. And then when she talks about how she doesn't have a "team" like Cousteau? That means that no one is supporting her in her quest for her rights.

See what you can get out of the others now.