They do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.
In the last two lines of the first stanza, Rich foreshadows the contrast between the tigers and Aunt Jennifer. The tigers are unafraid of “the men beneath the tree.” In the context of the scene, these men are probably hunters, but the fact that Rich only tells us about their maleness emphasizes that here, gender is what is most important. Unlike the tigers, Aunt Jennifer is afraid of men, specifically of her husband.
The last word of the first stanza is a bit unusual. Rich describes the tigers pacing in “certainty,” without ever establishing what exactly the tigers are certain of. We can infer that the tigers' certainty is a characteristic that transforms everything they do, even down to their pacing. Just as Rich contrasts their lack of fear with Aunt Jennifer’s terror, she also contrasts this certainty against Jennifer’s weakness. While the movements of the tigers are assured, Jennifer’s fluttering fingers struggle even to push a needle through wool. Without that sense of certainty, that feeling that her actions are justified and done right, Jennifer is barely able to move. Uncertainty thus becomes one way Jennifer is less free.
The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand.
“The massive weight of Uncle’s wedding band” is an example of hyperbole. We are probably not supposed to think that Aunt Jennifer’s wedding ring is really unusually heavy. Instead, Rich’s exaggeration suggests that the state of being married weighs Aunt Jennifer down, and is responsible for her near-inability to move in the preceding two lines. By centering the hand, Rich emphasizes the impact marriage has on Jennifer’s ability to act. The hand is usually associated with creation and action. Just as Jennifer’s ring stands in for her marriage, so her difficulty in sewing stands in for a broader difficulty in taking action. While we might think about marriage as primarily about the heart and the mind, Rich suggests here that it is also about our hands: about what we do and how we do it. Indeed, Rich never even alludes to how Jennifer feels about her husband. What matters is what her marriage does to her, the way it weighs down her actions and reduces her freedom in moving through the world.
The tigers in the panel that she made
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.
“Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” is written in loose iambic pentameter. This meter of ten alternating stressed and unstressed syllables was most famously used by Shakespeare, but it is extremely popular in a lot of English poetry. In this poem, Rich doesn’t always stick perfectly to either the ten-syllable requirement, or the alternating stress pattern. In these last two lines, however, she adheres to the meter perfectly. The bouncy, lyrical sound of the iambic pentameter reinforces the tigers' joyful prancing through the green world of the embroidered panel. The stability of the verse also creates a sense that this poem could go on forever, following the same pattern just as the prancing of the tigers will.
