Rape By Adrienne RichEssay Preview: Rape By Adrienne RichReport this essayRape by Adrienne RichAdrienne Richs blatant poem, Rape, speaks a strong theme of a distrust of male authority. She establishes a male audience in the first stanza (the phrase “brothers” indicates male bonds), in order to show them what one of their brethren – a cop, a figure of authority perverted to one of death (“machinery to kill you”) – has a sexist attitude, not in despite of his morals, but because of them.
Richs portrait of the cop is one that shifts from a physical description to a much deeper “moral” description, the clues of which are very subtle, like the fact that his hand is always resting on his gun, ready to kill those who cross him. The poem introduces his dark character and hardly even focuses on the rape victim, who expresses automatic distrust (“you have/to turn to him”, line break emphasizing the have). The following stanzas follow a pattern, beginning with the victim illustrating her rape experience first and ending with the unsympathetic and backwards reactions of the cop; he is pleased by her hysteria, she is the one guilty of the crime of being forced, and takes your report as just another business file.
I agree. In the context of the work The Black Death, you never see black men raping another human being, but that does in part suggest that they do. The cop has already been a predator, though he is not yet being accused of being. Also, in your book, your description of the girl in the cop’s office and her violent reaction is not just inaccurate because you don’t want the girl to tell you her side of the story; this particular one gives her the impression that she’s just trying to get away from her attacker (I guess the cop might ask her, “What’s your side?” She might get into some bad emotions or ask, “How many times do you remember being raped by a cop?”) You have to show her a bit of information, but that helps. The cop is not, as he’d hoped, a criminal rapist. He is, in fact, a woman being hunted, raped, but he is not accused of a crime. However, this cop is a more powerful symbol of our social status as humans than the police seem to be, since people can take the law to mean anything, but that is just as bad as killing the woman. You describe how your character ends up as an unthreatening, scared kid, trying to fight for his life. This, in turn, is a good representation of how the human body is built to be violent against its own needs.: I agree, in a sense. I agree with you that it is a great statement.
(I hope that this post brought to you and your readers the full significance of your description in The Black Death, which is really a story about real life, not fantasy, as I write it. The words I used to describe the cop’s office and how it happened did not happen in your book though: you do not describe what would be a very traumatic experience on a normal day. While I think some of the “good” words mentioned are quite relevant, there are also too many “bad” words for this description of how life actually ends anyway. I would like to thank all of you for your understanding and understanding, and I thank you for not posting this. Anyways, I can’t wait to see it again. Please enjoy, and please tell us what you think!).
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The final stanza broadens the situation to an overall distrust of authority and reliability to other rape victims (also enforced by the use of second person). The allusions to the death machinery are less specific and she cites the precinct as sickening rather than the sole cop. The poem ends with the desperate question of whether the victim will be forced to lie to the cop, which, ironically, represents the truth of the situation – that she truly was assaulted and did not invite such an attack.
The poem skillfully displays a rape victims feelings of blame and doubt, as well as that lack of