Adrienne Rich

This essay pass on present the report of the mapmaker in Adrienne sufficients allow atlas of the difficult World. The themes by means ofout the book will be extolled in this essay and dissected through the theme of this subject brought together through metaphor, concrete imagery and the allusion to protrude as come up as destination which sizable suggests throughout her build in concepts both metaphysical, and real. amples title metrical composition of Atlas of the Difficult World brings forth a voice which is cut into a wave- sorticle duality of realism as well as a harsh m early(a) wit of that public. The images prevalent in this poetry brings the images of the map into a bizarre reality which suggests a striking and h 1st concept of Americana in a impress light. This is the key mover of the theme of map in Richs Atlas of the Difficult World which is, in the very least, best expound as disturbing.The title verse relates to the contri yetor the concept of womens work. This poem whence imagines for the contri besidesors the liking of taperment much(prenominal) as topographical, geographical or landscape Rich presents the concept to the ratifier of where a charr is in relation to the margins of the country.The poem further expounds upon this notion by suggesting the idea, or earlier of questioning the subscriber as to the nature of the womans place in relation to our consciousness in a topographical sniff out of the term. This would agnisem as though Rich is delving into a political catamenia of consciousness, but it is in the map, in the geographics, or landscape which rests as the cover of the poems place as it relates to the ratifier.In the issue of maps, of place, Rich withal brings forth the concept of utilizations, of patriarchy and the womans dialectic towards such a predestined power. Rich goes on to extrapolate from the concept of topography the idea of a womans place, or womens work.The poem is a tantalizing tease between the idea of womens work in the margins of the country, and the map of womens recorded obsequious nature, but not her bouncy consciousness as to her protest definition of place. The title poem then serves as a gateway from the speaker to the reader through the data track of topography into the un-traversed landscape of indirect and misguided concepts of what womens work is, and the conscious factor of that work and its place in the United States. The poem serves as an tinge to an alternative to the idea of landscape, of the United States in regards to feminism (as is a ideal theme in Richs poems), politics, and personal space.The way in which boundaries of the map (politics, consciousness, gender, etc.) argon disregarded by the speaker is a important element in the poem this disregard allows for both the speaker and the reader to explore other aras of the typography, and the structure of such devices as gender, roles, etc.Thus, the speaker allows the reader to realize the relation of self, role, politics, and all of the above, to the composition of the atlas, and the role that an individual, or in this case, the role of the reader as a map readerI promised to show you a map you say but this is a mural then yes let it be these are small distinctions where do we see it from is the question (pt. II, ll. 22-24).Thus, the concept of personal roles comes into play in the poem as a question of perspective.The role of the narrator then is to allow the reader a chance to be guided through the atlas. The atlas in the poem pays attention to not only geography but excessively stories such stories are in relation to diachronic facts as well as personal screws.This allows the reader to respond to the poem through miscellaneous avenues of perspective such as they whitethorn be presented through historical place, and geography as well as body and mind locations thus, for each one reading of the poem by individual readers will recall a unalike perspective of the atlas since each reader is coming from their own personal frame of commendation.The poet, the narrator comes into the poem and suggests or brings forth to the reader the daring possibility of questioning their own place in the atlas, the landscape.This altercate is perpetuated from the concept of womens work, and the changing definition of what that entails, These are not roads / you knew me by. But the woman driving, walking, watching / for life and death, is the same (pt. I, ll. 77-79).The narrator presents women on the map, or the road to the reader, and the reader in turn becomes an active part of the poem since the reader brings their own interpretation through personal reference to the perspective of these women.The poems then are different roads along the entireness of the atlas, and the question which the poet reiterates to the reader is where do the poems take the reader which direction? Thus, program line of the role of the map is a central motif in Richs Atlas of a Difficult World.The following poems of Atlas of a Difficult World then are each designed as a road into the different split of the atlas on different levels and from different perspectives. The poems are not limited to the topography of the atlas but as well as delve into the hi fable of the place. There are thirteen parts of the book which in turn are vignettes which come from a myriad of womens lives.The voice which Rich lends to each stage is relatively urgent and gives the reader a sense that it is important that they read these lines not only for the attain of the woman who lived the story but for the readers personal make since it is with the reader that a continuation and change in the story may occur. This allows the reader to become part of an oral story for the nation, and thus a map maker in a sense, as memory is presented by Rich as a type of map, it is with this metaphor that the poems progress. It is by recognizing the splendour of history, even in small ch aracters that allows for the roles of women to change from obsequious to strong willed from patriarchic to gynocentric. Richs purpose in her poems is a striking muniment of forcing the reader to notice how women have been excluded in large part from the history, the geography of the land, the United States history.Thus, through use of landscape and the connection of landscape to events, Rich gives the reader a chance to notice these women.In Part I of Atlas of a Difficult World, Rich gives testimonies from a myriad of women who have a vast hunch forwardledge of economic hardship which incites fear and which either delays or spurns action forward. There is also a theme of silence and the breach of silence in the atlas, the memory of these moments with the different women in the poems.There is one poem which gives details of an unknown woman who was remove The woman was a call down worker who had been in deep exposure to toxins Malathion in the throat, dialogue, / the hospital at the edge of the fields, / prematures slipping from unsafe wombs (ll. 8-10).This woman has a type of communion with death, and her character is anonymous because there are count slight other women who are or were in the same situation, so many that their story became one story it had been told too often that the names were unimportant and then, eventually her story was forgotten. Rich brings the concept of the mapmaker as a memory harvester into her poems to give the reader an interactive part in the poem.Since this story is being retold to the reader, the reader must carry it in their memory, and thus give credit to the live that died, to the woman. The woman had been oppressed and exposed to environmental dangers, and because the woman had worked to survive but died anyway, it is important that her life be chartered into this atlas of memory, of story.Rich does not hope the idea of disaffirmation of memory to play a major role in the development of the country, of the atlas as she writes, I dont compliments to uplift how he beat her . . ., / tore up her writing . . . / . . . I dont expect to know / wreckage (ll. 39-40, 48-49).The interesting factor in this womans story is that her small death is actually a beginning of a topic cover up story, and thus, her story becomes part of the landscape of history, however minute. The womans death is a national cover up which confused violence and amoral behavior and which were the opposite of the striving of America, in industry. Through the disaffirmation of this story, history is changed, is make false through the help of the media.This theme of denial changes the landscape of the map, it erases important structures of the geography, and this lead into Part V of Atlas of a Difficult World in which a queer woman is murdered and yet, her story does not succumb to erasureI dont want to know how he tracked them along the Appalachian Trail, hid close by their tent, toss as they thought in seclusion killing one woman, the other dragging herself into town his defense they had teased his loathing of what they were I dont want to know but this is not a bad dream of mine (ll. 45-51).In move II and III, the poem becomes an evocation of the American ideal or geography. The poems exercise their voice towards symmetry or balance in history in which womens history is not erased or ruined or made to seem slavish, but instead integrates the real roles of women.In Part IV the poems introduce mourning of the women lost in the margins of the atlas, whose stories were cover up or never known, and the poem cries for still unbegun work of repair (1. 25). In this part, women are alluded to as prisoners, locked away out of sight and hearing, out of mind, shunted aside / those needed to teach, advise, persuade, weigh arguments / those urgently needed for the work of perception (ll. 19-21).It seems that Rich is suggesting that these women were covered up in the landslide of the country, or that they were unc hartered in its conception, unrecognized.In Parts VI-VIII Rich gives the allusion of the map and the lives of the women unraveling which becomes apparent as the men in the stories, or poems went on dreaming large dreams in the landscape of the history of the atlas, darn the women went on with untold stories of contention, they women went on without receiving.Rich goes on to state in these parts that the men continued in the map of the country thinking, and Rich suggests the jeering of this by stating, Slaves you would not be that (pt. VI, l. 14). This is a main point made by Rich in which she is stating that the men did not allow themselves to be considered or made slaves through physical force nor psychological devices but that women and others had to bear that history.There is a culmination of the focus of map making in Parts IX-XI which studies the fragmentation of the atlas through false history, as Rich states through the narrator, one woman / like and unlike so many, fooled as to her destiny, the scope of her task (pt. XI, ll. 16-17).In Part XII Rich gives the reader a chance of seeing restoration in the land through the information of womens roles and values by giving the reader these lines to ponder, What homage will be paid to a beauty built to last / from at bottom out . . . / I didnt speak then / of your beauty at the oscillation beside me . . . / I speak of them now (ll. 1-2, 9-10, 18).Thus, being a mapmaker, or a keeper of true history is the legacy Rich gives to her readers. It is through the role of speaking and not remaining silent, of allowing the atlas to grow, and of exploring the roads which were once unchartered that Richs motif of map making is an allusion to recognition of womens history, as Rich writes, I know you are reading this poem throughout the last part because the poem aspires to be nothing less than the unspoken, archetypal stories women know well.Rich concludes, I know you are reading this poem because there is nothing e lse left to read / there where you have landed, unornamented as you are (ll. 36-37) which in its honesty gives women a place on the atlas of the United States instead of remaining in the margins, in the keystone alleys of the topography.Work CitedRich, A. An Atlas of a Difficult World. W.W. Norton & Company. 1991.