Diving into the Wreck

Imagery

-book of myths

-camera

-knife-blade

-body-armor of black rubber

-absurd flippers

-grave and awkward mask

-ladder

-different colors of light/air

-the deep sea

-treasure

-shipwreck

-mermaid/merman

-half-destroyed instruments

I chose to focus on Rich’s poem “Diving into the Wreck” because it is embedded with themes that have applied to history and even continue into modern times. The poem is about a female adventurer on a quest to obtain knowledge. I believe the knowledge she seeks is about the relationship between the two sexes, a topic that has plagued our history and some may say still haunts us today to some extent. This adventurer begins her quest for knowledge with a book, a symbol for knowledge. She first reads this “book of myths” about the topic, and is curious to discover if these “myths” are actually facts. She prepares herself with the proper equipment for the trip and then she mentions a ladder, saying that “the ladder is always there”. I believe this piece of imagery defines the separation between the sexes, since ladders are used when two objects are of different heights. Relating the permanence of the ladder to the sexes, one gender is above the other, and that’s the way it has been and always will be. She travels down the ladder as the colors begin to change, turning from blue to green to black as she gets closer to a grim discovery. She is on a quest to find the truth, the “buried treasure” in the wreck, to understand how things may have been. She states that she has come for “the wreck and not the story of the wreck/ the thing itself and not the myth”. She needs to see for herself if the myths in fact hold any truth. She reaches her destination, and she finds everything in ruins. She describes the wreck as “ribs of the disaster” and the “evidence of damage/worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty”. She realizes that she is in the right place, and  this is where one begins to see the subject matter of her desired knowledge. She calls herself both the mermaid with dark black hair and the merman in his armored body. She later says “I am she: I am he”. She embodies both sexes in order to demonstrate that the wreck was caused by the treatment of women in a patriarchal society. The source of the history—these myths—define the roles of men and women in society even to today. The poem ends with a reference back to the book of myths, but a book in which their names do not appear. The women’s movement has been all about reaching equality so that women can also have their names in history.