Poets like Adrienne Rich and Muriel Rukeyser wrote with the firm belief that poetry had the power to create change, both in individuals and in society as a whole. . While they wrote for different political reasons (Adrienne Rich was more concerned with women's rights, while Rukeyser primarily addressed the entire political spectrum), they shared a common attitude: to change the world through the art of poetry . Likewise, they shared the same motivations for believing that poetry could change the world; they argued that the root of the problems they witnessed and experienced in their time was due to a fundamental lack of knowledge and understanding. If they could instill this missing knowledge and understanding in their readers, it would indeed make substantial progress towards much-needed change in the world. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Adrienne Rich has primarily focused her energy on establishing an understanding of female identity in hopes of inspiring women to take a legitimate and purposeful stand in the world. Rather than protesting patriarchy, she believed that it was women who should educate themselves and each other instead of submitting to the expectations imposed on them by traditional culture and society. For Rich, poetry is a tool we can use to help us see history from a new perspective, one that gives us the awareness and understanding to free ourselves from the universally ingrained structure of human society; the role of women in relation to men. Rich believed it was important to go back and review past events in order to establish a better present and future. In his poem “Diving into the Wreck,” Rich rejects the historical cliché of the male protagonist; the speaker of her poem is a woman and she is the heroine of the story. The quest is a critique of ancient myths and the treasure is knowledge. Rich begins the poem with a “book of myths.” This is the most important and mysterious symbol in the poem. I believe that this mythical aspect symbolizes the patriarchal influence in society against which the poet strives to fight; the idea that men will always have power over women and their freedom; myths that divide men and women into two opposing groups, which perpetuate the battle between the sexes. At the same time, it also represents the journey that a woman undertakes to discover herself, free from all restrictions. It is a journey of self-exploration that she must undertake alone, contrary to the belief that women cannot do anything without the presence of a man. Before even beginning her journey, the speaker must be aware of the history she is diving into: “First after reading the book of myths.” This is the basis for the rest of the poem as she attempts to make sense of current knowledge and myths, breaking them down to find the truths of both. Rich includes several other symbols and images to introduce the reader to the new discoveries the speaker makes on her journey. “And I checked the sharpness of the knife blade, / I put on / the black rubber bulletproof vest.” The speaker examines what she is wearing; although she has armor and a weapon, they are very different from the chainmail and sword in this type of story. By playing with the identity of these traditional objects, she tries to understand how she can identify with thispart of the story and decide if it concerns her. The speaker says, “and loaded the camera,” and here the camera is a tool that captures her discoveries along the journey, in order to preserve them and include them in our history. “There is a ladder. /The ladder is still there / hanging innocently / near the side of the schooner. / We know what it is for, / we who have used it. "The ladder is a crucial part of the poem, as Rich devotes a large part of the poem to its meaning. We are forced to confront the image of the ladder; a ladder is used to change position, to climb or to go down In this case, going down the ladder will take the speaker to another world In lines 14 and 15, the ladder becomes a character in the poem When the speaker describes the ladder as "hanging innocently", Rich uses. personification to bring the object to life The scale can also represent a possible obstacle in the speaker's journey Rich uses a simile, comparing the speaker to an insect This journey is difficult and she is clumsy, he. so it will take him a long time to complete his journey. “I came to explore the wreck / Words are goals / Finally, the wreck symbolizes the image of one's life. woman, her successes and her failures It is the story of all women oppressed by a patriarchal culture; it is the source of the myths about gender norms that shape our lives and roles today. Although the journey is for the speaker alone, it also represents others who have traveled the same path. The journey is about discovery and healing, and that's what Rich is trying to achieve with his poem. While Adrienne Rich revised historical constructs to create change, Muriel Rukeyser was primarily interested in producing political change through personal exposition of the issues at hand, acting more like a poetic reporter or journalist. Rukeyser dealt with the lack of humanity and the loss of human innocence in war. It is obvious that she was deeply influenced by it. His poem, “Poem (I Lived in the First Century of the World Wars)” describes a struggle for consciousness and purpose in a time when both seem completely unnecessary. The first line, “I lived in the first century of world wars,” sets the scene for the poem in a powerful way. We can assume that it would be the last, but the speaker corrects us by saying that it was only “the first”. “Set in the era of World War I, then World War II and now the Vietnam War, such an attitude towards the situation is justified. This is a totally hopeless statement. In the following lines of the poem, the speaker expands on this spirit of despair using vague language: “I would call my friends on other devices; / They would be more or less crazy for similar reasons.” It creates an image to make us witness the uselessness of the situation by reducing high-level machines to "other devices" and intense and complicated emotions, such as despair or even madness, to "more or less sad ". “Being precise doesn't matter anymore, because nothing really matters. The speaker lives in a world traumatized by pain to the point of numbness, a world where people have learned to ignore the daily disasters and horrors happening around them. The speaker seems sucked into a state of permanent apathy. Despite the grim situation, Rukeyser's speaker is still hoping for the slightest spark of motivation. She fights against the apathy that invades her: “Little by little, I would put myself to pen and paper/Write my poems for others invisible and unborn.” This small act of writing seems futile, but it ends.