Style
Free Verse
The poem is written in free verse, which does not
conform to traditional patterns of meter and
rhyme. It became a popular form of verse during
the 1960s, when it represented, as it does in this
poem, a rebellion against traditional form that
paralleled the spirit of political and social upheaval
and rebellion that characterized the decade. Thus,
‘‘Diving into the Wreck,’’ a poem that has a fem-
inist theme, is not restricted by any formal rhyme
or meter but follows its own individual shape and
rhythm. The poem is arranged in ten stanzas, rang-
ing in length from seven to twelve lines. The lines
are of many different lengths, as short as two
syllables and as long as twelve. Thus the poem
breaks with traditional form in the same way that
it calls for a breaking with tradition in terms of
women’s place in society. Form and theme comple-
ment each other.
Metaphor
The controlling metaphors are those of the deep-
sea diver and the sunken wreck. Almost every
image in the poem belongs in one or other of
these categories, creating a broadly unified
effect. The first metaphor, of the diver, repre-
sents the individual speaker. The speaker is on a
quest to explore the crushed, buried aspects of
the mind and heart; she probably represents all
women who have been forced to suppress their
deepest desires, longings, and ambitions because
they were dominated by men, both individually
and collectively, who arranged society for their
own benefit rather than in an equitable manner.
The sunken wreck represents everything that has
been forgotten, devalued, and suppressed, all of
which could have been of enormous value to the
individual and to society had it been used prop-
erly. Instead, it has been left to rot.
Historical Context
The Beginnings of the Modern Women’s
Movement
The opening line of ‘‘Diving into the Wreck,’’
about a female speaker who has read a book of
myths, might be interpreted to mean the ways in
which American culture viewed women and the
role they were expected to play in society before
the feminist movement arose. This would be
America in the 1950s, when Rich was a young
mother married to a Harvard professor and rais-
ing her three sons. In those days this was consid-
ered the ideal role for women: They stayed at
home and raised the children while their hus-
band was the breadwinner. According to statis-
tics cited by William Chafe inThe Road to
Equality: American Women since 1962, in 1960,
only one married woman in four held a paid job.
If women did join the workforce, certain jobs,
such as secretary, nurse, receptionist, bank teller,
and clerk, were considered women’s jobs, while
only the unusual woman was given the oppor-
tunity to become a lawyer or a doctor, and even
more rarely did women occupy senior positions
in corporations. In 1960, women earned only 59
percent of what men received. This was a world
in which men had all the power and privilege, a
situation that was justified by the notion that
this was a natural division of the sexes, sanc-
tioned by tradition and even religious scriptures.
It was presented as the truth of how things had to
be, but emerging feminists understood it to be
only a culturally generated myth.
The status quo between the genders began to
change in the 1960s, a decade of immense social
upheaval that included the civil rights move-
ment. A landmark year for feminism was 1963,
which coincidentally was also the year when
Rich began to find her own authentic poetic
voice. In that year the Presidential Commission
on the Status of Women, created by President
John F. Kennedy, reported that there was sig-
nificant discrimination against women in
employment and recommended improvements
in the areas of fair hiring, training and promo-
tion, paid maternity leave, and child care. Also
in 1963 Congress passed the Equal Pay Act,
which banned discrimination on the basis of
gender and established the principle of equal
pay for equal work and responsibility. And that
same year Betty Friedan published her bookThe
Feminine Mystique, which is widely credited with
launching what is known as the second-wave
feminist movement. The book was an eloquent
and passionate protest against the restricted
roles that society imposed on women, especially
middle-class women.
In 1964, the Civil Rights Act banned dis-
crimination in employment on the basis of gen-
der or race. Two years later, feminists including
Friedan founded the National Organization ofDiving into the Wreck