Body Politics and Resistance to the Gender Performance in Adrienne Rich’s “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” and Sylvia Plath’s “The Moon and the Yew Tree”

This paper examines Adrienne Rich’s poem “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” and Sylvia Plath’s poem “The Moon and the Yew Tree” through feminist theories of body politics and gender performativity. It argues that both poems, while differing in narrative style, resist the pervasive patriarchal control over women’s bodies and identities during the mid-twentieth century. By applying Susan Bordo’s concept of body politics, which explains how cultural forces discipline and shape the female body as a site of societal inscription and resistance, alongside Judith Butler’s theory of gender as a performative identity, this study reveals the complex ways female embodiment is regulated and contested. Rich’s poem portrays artistic resistance to oppressive marriage through the symbolic act of embroidery, while Plath’s work explores existential alienation and spiritual dislocation within similar patriarchal constraints. This qualitative literary analysis employs close reading guided by feminist theory to investigate how the poets use metaphor and imagery to negotiate female subjectivity between subjugation and liberation. The study addresses key questions: How do these poems depict patriarchal control and feminist resistance through female bodies? In what ways do symbolic imagery and performative gestures challenge dominant gender norms? Findings suggest that Rich and Plath not only critique patriarchal discipline but also anticipate ongoing debates about agency, embodiment, and cultural resistance. In this way, the paper affirms poetry as a powerful medium for feminist resistance. It contributes to expanding feminist literary criticism by combining traditional analysis of gender performativity with contemporary theories of body politics.