The poem “Diving Into The Wreck” by Adrienne Rich shows a strong sense of determination and isolation throughout the speakers journey to find the truth behind the myths that she has been told. The speaker is embodying a scuba diver on this endeavor to find a shipwreck. Throughout the poem the reader is taken on a journey with the speaker to explore the underwater adventure alone.
The first stanza is crucial for the rest of the poem while talking about isolation. The poem starts out with Rich describing what a scuba diver would wear, but she incorporates phrases such as “edge of the knife-blade” and “body-armor” which leads me to believe that she feels like she needs to protect herself on this journey she is embarking on. No one knows where the reader is because she does not give her origin, so there is also a feeling of danger in this stanza. Danger is amplified when someone is alone. The poem goes onto say. “I am having to do this//not like Cousteau with his// assiduous team// aboard the sun-flooded schooner// but here alone” (7-12). This quote is blatantly saying that she is going on this journey alone. It has an underlying tone of jealousy that Cousteau had a team, he had people to keep him company on his adventure. But the speaker is doing this alone to build her own judgements on these myths that she has been told for many years.
In stanza three she writes, “I crawl like an insect down the ladder//and there is no one//to tell me when the ocean//will begin” (30-33). These lines have an emphasis on the sense of isolation. She uses words such as ‘I’, ‘no one’, and ‘me’ to show that she is all alone in this big ocean. The reader gets a sense of how far away from land or any other human being the speaker is once again leaving the speaker to feel isolated.
In stanza seven Rich writes, “the thing I came for: //the wreck and not the story of the wreck// the thing itself and not the myth//the drowned face always staring//toward the sun//the evidence of damage//worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty//the ribs of the disaster//curving their assertion//among the tentative haunters” (62-71). In these lines, the wreck is symbolizing the myths that she has been told. On this journey, the speaker wants to find the substance of the myth, the truth behind all of the stories she has been told not the lies. The speaker is on this journey alone to make her own judgements about the truth. I believe that she chose to go on this adventure by herself so that her truth would not be tainted by anyone else that joined her.
The last stanza of this poem is very powerful. Rich writes, “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” (88-95). This is one of the first times in the poem that the speaker addresses the reader by using ‘we’ and ‘you’ giving the reader a sense of collaboration. Indicating that the speaker isn’t alone on this journey anymore because she achieved what she set out to find. The next few lines of this stanza talk about the camera that the speaker brought underwater, this shows that the speaker found the evidence that she was looking for regarding these myths and she’s using the pictures and photos as “proof” that something exists. She will bring these back to the surface with her to prove the myths wrong.
These persistent doubts have been isolating the reader from believing what is being told. These thoughts were dealt with on her own and thus her journey was also on her own. It is often in life that the biggest questions and self-doubt are manifested within our own mind. Sometimes being alone is when the questions and answers are found.
- What do you think the ‘ book of myths’ is a symbol for?
- Rich says, “you breathe differently down here” (line 51)? How and why do you think the speaker can breathe differently ‘down here’?
“Diving into the Wreck by Adrienne Rich – Poems | Academy of American Poets.” Poets.org, Academy of American Poets, poets.org/poem/diving-wreck.
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Hey Kelly,
Great job analyzing the poem, I had to read it three times to understand its meaning. The quotes you mentioned in your blog post are the same ones I have highlighted because they caught my attention. I believe Rich wanted to delve into the ocean alone to obtain an unbiased opinion of the disaster she was waiting to explore. Myths are known to create a plot with vast amounts of imagery, conflict, morals, excitement, and action. In the first stanza, Rich mentioned items such as: “book and camera” which contain an educational purpose. But she also mentioned “Knife-blade and body armor” which carry negative connotations and its uses can be classified as protection from others or harming others. Books of myths can be a representation of wanting to do the same as other storytellers. Rich has been recognized as a well-respected poet in American society. Rich probably wanted to explore the depths of the ocean on her own and take upon a new perspective of the new environment she was in. Thus accumulating her own ideas for a myth she would write, “in which//our names do not appear.” Perhaps she wanted her name written down in a genre she had an extensive amount of interest in.
Hi Kelly, I think you did a really good job pulling and teasing out the symbols of this poem. I also liked that you picked up on the isolation of the speaker. When I read this poem, I see her adventure/journey below as a quest for her identity. The first stanza shows her armoring up, which begs the question why? Your point about Rich feeling she needs protection is spot on. Doing the work to dive into your identity can be dangerous, especially if that identity turns out to not be socially accepted.
As the speaker gets to the wreck they begin to explore it, in terms that have sexual connotations as well as body parts, for example the ship has “ribs” (68). The poet also “stroke[s]..slowly along the flank” (57-58). My favorite part of this poem comes from stanza nine when the poet states, “I am she: I am he” (77). The way I read all of these lines, is the poet exploring their gender and sexual identity. They wanted to explore it all in real life rather than just in a book.
Hi Kelly! I really like how you analyzed the poem by each stanza. I thought this poem was challenging, but your interpretation really helped me understand it better. I also tried to break down the poem by each stanza because of its lengthy material. In the first stanza, the terms “edge of the knife-blade” and “body-armor” also stood out to me. It seems as though Rich feels a sense of fear and needs to defend herself while she is taking the dive. She seems to be isolating herself by the use of the words “I”, “no one”, and “me”, as you’ve mentioned. Rich chooses to do this journey alone and wants to create her own ideas and perspective. I think she is alone so she can figure out if the myths she’s always known are real or just myths. She wants to create her own opinions without outside influence. I think the “book of myths” and this poem is referring to the depths of herself and her mind. She wants to “go down” more and more so she can discover what is in those depths. In the beginning, she “loaded the camera”, meaning she’s ready to find the real truth and obtain proof of her findings. Kelly, you connected the first and last stanza so well! In the last stanza, Rich refers to the camera again. This probably means she has gotten the proof she needs and has made up her mind. She is still carrying the knife because, although she has found her discoveries, there will still always be fear in this world for a woman like Rich. Perhaps, her findings aren’t socially accepted or believed by others. However, Rich has answered her inner questions and uncovered her own findings.
Hi Kelly, I enjoyed your analysis of Adrienne Rich’s poem. It gave me a different perspective to view this poem under. Yet, to me, I gathered an entirely different meaning behind this poem. Reading the biography of Rich, when she wrote this poem which it states at the bottom was in 1971-1972. Her husband had just died in 1970 and she was now free to move in with her long-time partner Michelle Cliff. So taking that into consideration, I read this more as an awakening for her. A look back in the past and her stepping into her new future. In the poem’s first line “First having read the book of myths,” (1) I felt that rich was saying she had, in essence, drank the Kool-aide of life. She had taken the path that was expected and not chosen her own. “…loaded up the camera,// and checked the edge of the knife-blade,// I put on// the body-armor of black rubber” (2-5), here she is preparing herself for the inevitability of pain that will come when she dives down into her past and sees the good and the bad.
I felt like the sea and the mention of the “schooner” were her ways of saying that she is on this new and exciting journey. Below the sea would be her past and up here in the sun would be her future. The “ladder” was that echo that followed her through life that was her way of climbing out of the set life that was expected and reaches for her new and more true to herself future.
Hi there Kelly! I thought your analysis was quite perplexing and definitely brought up points that perhaps not every reader would consider. Even though this poem is evidently a description of a scuba dive, I wonder if you could maybe consider it to be a metaphor or allegory for something deeper. Often times women are doubted and not taken seriously without the presence of a man. Within this piece, the speaker inserts that, “I have to learn alone/to turn my body without force/in the deep element.” This perhaps is indicative of the speaker striving to achieve a particular accomplishment without the lingering doubt that may be strewn upon her as a woman. Insinuating that she has to learn alone could potentially mean that she has to travel deep inside herself, without a man, in order to truly become a force of power in the world. The camera may even be representative of her need to display proof of her discoveries and power as a female. As a poet, Rich often “dives deep” into her thoughts and bears them for the world to see. Although perhaps in this time period a woman poet would not be taken as seriously and thus she must preform this dive alone, and come back with proof that she is in fact a worthy writer. This theory can also be see through the quote, “And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair/streams black, the merman in his armored body.” The man is protected while the woman is vulnerable in the harsh open water of the sea. Assuredly, this particular piece follows a scuba diver and her journey alone into the deep sea, however, perhaps it may also follow the speaker’s journey as a female poet in a man’s world.
Hey Kelly, I thoroughly enjoyed your analysis of this poem! I feel that you beautifully connected your analysis to the overall theme of the poem which is identity. To refer to your first discussion question, I feel that the “book of myths” is symbolic to the misconceptions society holds about identity itself. Books are concrete and physical embodiments of ideas. The fact that the speaker opened the poem with, “First having read the book of myths” and directly calls it a book of myths holds a lot of power (1). Myths are common phenomenons that are not necessarily true or false, rather an idea that could be represented as true or not after further experimentation. For the speaker to reflect that mentality initially shows how she is attempting to challenge the ideas within the said book of myths. This symbol reflects the way people view identity and intersectionality. By there being a book, it shows that there is some history behind this subject of identity. The speaker presses against the grain to go recover remains from a symbolic shipwreck in order to discover who the speaker truly is and what they desire.
Hey Kelly, I really liked your interpretation of Rich’s poem and the ways you analyzed the use of pronouns. To me this poem has a lot to do with exploring one’s identity and metaphorically diving deep. I agree with your analyses of the Cousteau lines of the poem, that she acknowledges his privileges in not being alone. In response to your question about the “book of myths” I think that might be symbolic of American history. That is to say, the book that speaks of treasures and grandeur hiding in ships at the bottom of the sea is absent of the struggle and reality behind these scenes. The speaker in the closing lines reminds the audience that this is, “a book of myths in which our names do not appear” (92-95). The use of “our” plays with how the audience reads the poem and identifies with it. There are the “them” and the “we” and “our” that makes us both invited and divided from the poem. The fact the book of myths is omitting names would seem to me that although it holds true information, like the locations of these shipwrecks, it is distorted by false information.
Hi Kelly, I love the way you interpreted this poem. I agree about the insect comparison as representing isolation. In terms of the speaker being able to breathe differently underwater, I interpreted this poem as being very meditative. The beginning felt anxious and uncertain, in a way which the speaker is going to defend and protect themselves going into the unknown with their “armor,” a “knife-blade” and “mask”. As the poem continued and the speaker was descending into the ocean, the speaker’s observations and reflections appeared meditative. “The sea is not a question of power – it just is”. This observation gave the speaker a sense of peace and confidence. They continue with “I have to learn alone” and accept the need for isolation. They find power within this as well. Their understanding gives them a feeling of ease. “You breathe differently down here” feels like a place of comfort, safety, a continued meditative state. The ocean could represent the womb and this sense of security. A return through the mind and breathing practices. Other lines such as “I am she: I am he” symbolizes how the speaker understands how the universe works, how their mind works, and that it’s bigger than that. This was such a beautiful poem that I got lost in to and felt very connected. I’m interested to see how others interpret the breathing aspect of the poem.
Hi Kelly!
I really enjoyed your post and the analysis and interpretation you took from it. I think the way that Rich uses pronouns also very interesting. She starts the poem alone, “I have to learn alone/to turn my body without force/in the deep element”, “it is easy to forget/what I came for … I came to explore the wreck./The words are purposes./The words are maps./I came to see the damage that was done/and the treasures that prevail.” But later in the poem is joined by others, “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.” At first when she is alone, she is trying to understand the wreck and understand what has happened. But once she is joined by others, they become the wreck. I think as a whole, they become the wreck as one and there is no way to understand the wreck, unless they are the wreck. This really correlates with the discussions we’ve been having in class. It is hard to understand the struggles and oppression people face unless you yourself are someone who faces the struggles. Also, as one singular person you may think you are alone in the oppression you feel, but once joined by others, you are able to understand and grasp the oppressions around you.
Hey, Kelly! I really enjoyed your blog post and the way that you broke down each stanza definitely helped me further understand what the poem meant, as it took me many readings to fully grasp everything that Rich was writing about. When Rich says “you breath differently down here”, to me that resembled the truth that she was discovering. As the poem is about Rich’s solo journey into the ocean, yearning to learn about the damage and the wreck of the ship, and even deeper than that, if the myths that she has come accustomed to are truly myths or not. Also, the mention of the loading the camera in line two, “and loaded the camera”, seems to hint at using a camera to collect proof of what the truth really is. Ultimately, I think that Rich is relating the change of breathing to finding sort of a breath of fresh air, when she finds the truth.
I also think there is something to be said about the repeated mention of the camera in the last stanza. In the first stanza, Rich mentions loading the camera, before her voyage to find the truth. The line “carrying a knife, a camera”, in the last stanza mentions the camera again, which I think may wrap up the idea of finding the proof and truth she was on a quest to find.
Again, great job on your blog! Can’t wait to see your presentation!
Hi Kelly! I loved all of the details and quotes you pulled from this poem to really try and understand the deeper meaning “under the sea.” This poem caught my attention especially the title. The word “Wreck” is defined by the destruction of the sea and I feel like this is important because Rich knew from the start that the underworld and the truth is a dangerous place because it can be torn apart and used in the wrong way. But even with that, she still was determined to find out the reality about herself. This was shown when it states, “I came to see the damage that was done/ and the treasures that prevail.” The quote shows how she wanted to see for herself the destruction, but knew everything could not be dead inside. The treasures are her lights through the darkness of the truth. I also underlined the line “you breathe differently down here,” because i felt as if her emotions towards this could go either way. It is a new way of living therefore breathing and it is interesting to learn and understand this new side, but also how she could be short breathed while finding out the reality and truth about herself and others.
Hey Kelly! Honestly, I thought this was a very hard poem to take apart and analyze. I had to read it multiple times in order to even get the smallest grasp of what the poem was trying to get across, but you did an amazing job breaking the poem down and explaining the stanzas. As I was breaking down the poem’s stanzas line by line, I noticed that Rich uses extremely powerful imagery to encourage her readers to image what her message is trying to convey. For example, the readers could imagine what the speaker looked like, as she used linguistic imagery to create a picture of the diver’s outfit, such as “the edge of the knife-blade,” “body-amor of black rubber,” “absurd flippers,” and “awkward mask” (3-7). This imagery seems to be a tool for the narrator, as they use it for some sort of protection against what’s around them, which can also translate to Rich maybe having feelings of being alone and scared of the surrounding world and the people within it. I also found the last stanza to be the most powerful of the bunch, as the speaker states, “We are, I am, you are.” Here, I thought that Rich might have placed herself in the position of the speaker. She seems to be connecting with other individuals who might feel the same way as her. Especially because she uses the word “We,” which can be extremely powerful since it shows a sense of uniting a group of people together (88). The wreck she seems to be diving into seems as if she is going back into her past and revisiting old events and memories. It seems as if she is taking this journey or “dive” to learn more about herself and revisit her past problems and figure out what she can do better from this moment.
Heyyy Kelly! You did an amazing job on your blog post. Your close reading of Andrienne Rich’s poem, “Diving into the Wreck” really demonstrated your overall understanding of the theme which is journey to uncover one’s identity. In the poem, Andrienne Rich recounts a dive in the ocean, going from the boat to ultimately the ship wreck. I liked that you pointed out that she is not diving into the wreck with a team of people, but she is doing it alone. Diving into the wreck becomes a metaphor for going into the past. Rich is seeking to uncover the past because like Italian philosopher, George Santayana once said, “Those who do not remember their past are doomed to repeat it”. Rich emphasizes that she is searching for “the wreck and not the story of the wreck” (Rich, lines 70-71) and the wreck that she is in search for is the history of the patriarchy. The history of where that damage occurred is crucial to Rich’s understanding of why gender roles exist. The “book of myths” becomes a symbol for the fallacy of the difference between the two sexes. It is the belief that men are both biological and societal superior to women that creates the wreck and is the framework of our patriarchal society.