AUNT JENNIFER’S TIGERS

Values raised in the poem: Respect for women, equality, gender sensitivity,
empathy, feminism, value for art

Themes
1. Marriage is unequal due to male domination/Inequality

The woman at the centre of the poem, Aunt Jennifer, is a nervous and fearful wife. She lacks inner
conviction or ‘certainty’, unlike the tigers she portrays. Aunt Jennifer is ‘mastered’ in her life. She
lives a life of inequality. She is so nervous that her fingers ‘flutter’ through the wool she is using in her
tapestry or panel. The poet portrays the marriage of Jennifer as an unhappy one for her. Aunt Jennifer
feels the burden of duty and obedience. This is shown by the symbol of the wedding ring that she wears.
It is described as her husband’s property: ‘Uncle’s wedding band’. It ‘sits heavily’ on her hand because
he dominates her life. Her life with her husband is described as a life of ‘ordeals’. It is shown that
Jennifer is terrified in her marriage. Her husband may be fiercer to her than the tigers she produces in
her artwork. The poem therefore provides a negative picture of marriage. The poem is probably saying
that the ‘Uncle’ or husband is behaving like a tiger, and the tigers are ‘chivalric’ like the husband should
be. Each world is the reverse of what it should be.

2. The world of art is happier than the real world/Dream versus Reality

Aunt Jennifer’s hobby is making designs and pictures from wool. Jennifer produces wool tapestries that
she places on panels. The creatures she places there are free and proud, the opposite to herself. She is
‘ringed’ or mastered in marriage and therefore she is not free, but controlled. It seems that she creates a
happier looking world than the one she lives in. She makes precise and brightly coloured pictures like
the sharp yellow tigers of the poem, pictured against a green background. These bright contrasting
colours are probably much more vivid than Jennifer’s everyday world. Her artistic work will live on
after she dies, as, according to the poet, her tigers will ‘go on prancing’. The figures she creates are
stronger and happier than she is. They are proud and ‘prance’ about, unlike their creator, who is nervous
and fears her husband. The word ‘prance’ or parade contrasts sharply with ‘fluttering’, meaning
trembling. The tigers do not fear the men the aunt places under some trees in her tapestry. Therefore, the
imaginary tigers produced by Aunt Jennifer live a type of proud and free life that she can only dream
about. It is a ‘chivalric’ world, one where gentlemen treat women with great respect. Yet this is also a
false world, as real tigers live out a battle for survival of the fittest, where the strongest dominate.
Perhaps Aunt Jennifer uses art as an escape from her troubles. In her artwork Jennifer imagines the kind
of life she would have liked.

Things to note

1) Depiction of a woman trapped in the cultural constraints and responsibilities of marital life and
oppressive male dominance in a patriarchal society
2) Animal symbolism – the animals she sews represent Aunt Jennifer’s innermost desires to be free,
fearless, joyful, graceful, elegant, noble, powerful, assertive and confident.

3) Other symbols – Aunt (represents all women caught in poor marriages), wedding band (an
instrument symbolising constraints and ordeals of a bad marriage), men beneath the tree (predators, the
uncle who has mastered aunt Jennifer’s spirit), tigers (innermost desires of Aunt Jennifer)

4) Poetic devices – Alliteration (fingers flutter), hyperbole (massive weight), personification (ring sits
heavily upon aunt’s hand, tigers – chivalric, denizens, prance), visual imagery (bright topaz, world of
green, ivory needle, fluttering fingers, prance, pace, wedding band sits heavily), transferred epithet
(terrified hands), pun ( words which have two meanings- (literal and symbolic)(ringed)

Paradox [apparent contradiction] Here a trembling and ‘mastered’ woman creates free and confident
creatures in her artistic endeavours. ‘Fluttering’ fingers produce something that has ‘certainty’

Metaphor The poet compares the yellow stripes of the tigers to a precious stone, topaz.

Hyperbole [Exaggeration] The poet exaggerates the weight of her husband’s wedding ring to make a
point about how dominating he is. ‘Massive weight’

Alliteration [repetition of consonant sounds at the start of nearby words] eg: ‘p’ in ‘prancing proud’
emphasises the feeling of confidence expressed in the tigers’ movements.

Contrast [difference] The main contrasts are between nervous Aunt Jennifer and her confident tigers.
Another contrast is between the strong yellow and green colours. The words ‘prancing’ and ‘fluttering’
contrast as well

Irony: It is ironical that Aunt Jennifer’s creations- the tigers will continue to pace and prance freely,
while Aunt herself will remain terrified even after death, ringed by the ordeals she was controlled by in
her married life.
5) Themes – ordeals of marriage in a patriarchal society, art as a means of expression and escape

Interpret the symbols in the poem

Wedding band– symbol of oppression in an unhappy marriage. Marriage is socially and legally
binding, making women silently accept their subjugation and male domination, especially in a
patriarchal society. Its weight refers to the burden of gender expectations. Ringed means encircled or
trapped, losing individuality and freedom.
A typical victim of male oppression in an unhappy marriage, who suffers loss of individuality,
dignity and personal freedom silently. She becomes dependent, fearful and frail.

Tigers– symbolize untamed free spirit. Here they are the antithesis of their creator’s personality. The
use of colours implies that Aunt Jennifer’s tigers and their land are more vital and enjoy a sense of
freedom far greater than her. Yellow (bright topaz) connotes the sun and fierce energy, while green
reminds one of spring and vitality.
They pace and prance freely, proudly, fearless, confident and majestic in their bearing.
 Creative expression. The artwork expresses the Aunt’s suppressed desires and becomes her escape
from the oppressive reality of her life.

Aunt (last stanza) – as opposed to Aunt Jennifer. It shows that she has lost her identity completely,
thus lost even her name.

Summary
• This poem of three four-line stanzas imagines a relative whose hobby is needlework.
• Aunt Jennifer reveals her dreams of a happier life in her needlework.
• From the titles given to the adults, it seems as if the speaker is a child.
• In the first stanza the relative, Aunt Jennifer, makes a panel with images of tigers parading
proudly across it. The tigers are free, unlike their maker.
• Her panel contains animals that are happier and more confident than she is. There is a ‘certainty’
about them that their maker lacks in herself.
• Aunt Jennifer paints confident, proud tigers. They are assured and confident dwellers,
‘denizens’, of their green world. ‘Denizen’ suggests independent citizen.
It would seem that Jennifer is not an independent citizen of her own world. She is instead a wife,
weighed down by duties as we learn in the second stanza.
• Jennifer uses sharp and contrasting colours, sharp yellow against a green background.
• Her tigers are as bright as topaz, a yellow gem.
• Her picture contains an image of men under a tree, though the proud tigers show no fear of the
men. This is mentioned to show that they differ from Jennifer, who lives in fear of her husband
to some extent.
• The tigers reminds the poet of knights, full of courtesy and style. Chivalric men respected their
women and acted kindly towards them. Again, this seems to contrast with how ‘Uncle’ behaved
towards Aunt Jennifer according to the second stanza.
• In the second stanza, the poet describes Aunt Jennifer’s nervous hands struggling to pull the
wool with her ivory needle. The word ‘fluttering’ suggests trembling.
• We get the impression of a frail woman who finds it hard to pull the needle.
• It is interesting that if her needle is made of ivory it may have come from an elephant’s tusk.
Ivory is a bit like topaz, a precious material.
• The poet suggests that Aunt Jennifer’s fingers find it hard to hold the weight of her wedding ring
and then pull the needle at the same time.
• The wedding band is another reference to a precious substance, probably gold.
• By mentioning that it is ‘Uncle’s wedding band’, the poet suggests that Uncle owns Jennifer too
and that as a female she is the property of her husband.
• The words ‘massive’ and ‘heavily’ suggest Aunt Jennifer lives a demanding sort of life in which
she has to attend to her husband’s needs and fulfil his commands.
• In the third stanza, the poet predicts that, when Aunt Jennifer dies, her hands will look worn
from all her needlework as well as the hard time she has trying to please her husband.
• Aunt Jennifer is ‘ringed’, trapped in her marriage and controlled like an animal. Her husband is
her master.
• Her artwork will live on after her as a reminder of the dreams she never fulfilled.

Do you sympathize with Aunt Jennifer? What is the attitude of the speaker towards her?
Aunt Jennifer’s plight as a victim of gender oppression in an unhappy marriage draws our sympathy.
However, the poet underscores that Aunt by accepting her suffering silently let her life be completely
mastered over by her husband and lost her personal freedom and individuality. Her desires expressed in
her art work will remain only a dream unless women like her assert their equal status.