Rape - a Crime of Power

Rape - a Crime of Power

Rape – A Crime of Power

The poem Rape, by Adrienne Rich, is about a woman who has been the victim of rape. It tells us how the victim steps forward to tell a police officer that she has been victimized and how she feels going to this authority figure to voice what she has been through. The victim is humiliated in sharing her personal tragedy with this stranger, whom she does not know, but must share her innermost thoughts and truths about what she has been forced to do.
There is a certain sense of akwardness between the police officer and the victim as she feels he might not be completely trustworthy even though he is an authority figure. After all, he is a man and and at this point she does not know if men can be trusted, period. After all, man is the one that put her in this position of humility. The humility of coming forward and telling a public authority figure what she has been through, hoping he will believe her. The police officer she speaks of, he is a family man by day, a father and a friend, and an authority figure by night. Once he slips on the uniform, he reveals a different side of himself. He is at that time a powerful person, gun clutched at his side. He likes people to look at him as a person of authority, he enjoys the thought of intimidating other people.
The poem shows us how the victim feels she is being perceived by the police officer, that he might not necessary believe the story she is feeding him or that she might have actually brought something on herself possibly or deserve what has happened to her. He acts like he knows her as he asks for more details of what happened and how. You
can sense the vulnerability in the victim as she is at the lowest point in her life and she has to share it with someone so unfamiliar and cold.
Adrienne Rich uses imagery to create vivid pictures to the reader of how insecure the victim was in coming forward. She also uses descriptive words to put you in the story, feeling like the victim yourself...