An Explication of "Prospective Immigrants Please Note" by Adrienne Rich.
"Prospective Immigrants Please Note"
Adrienne Rich
Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.
If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your name.
Things look at you doubly
and you must look back
and let them happen.
If you do not go through
it is possible
to live worthily
to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
to die bravely
but much will blind you,
much will evade you,
at what cost who knows?
The door itself
makes no promises.
It is only a door.
A poem by Adrienne Rich, "Prospective Immigrants Please Note", helps one consider the dual perspective, the mother culture and the American ideals. Rich 's essential goal is to remember your families and origins.
First of all, the title "Prospective Immigrants Please Note" implied an immigrant 's plea to leave their country and go to another country. Upon reading the poem, though, I now see the title as Rich 's plea to immigrants not to forget who, what and where they came from.
Rich 's poem claims either leaves the land or simply stay. "Either you will / go through this door / or you will not go through." The reason you want to go through the door is to better your conditions for the family and yourself. Nevertheless one has to acknowledge that at a point in her [Rich] life she faced her partly Jewish roots, so this poem could deal with Jews or any people considered the 'other ' immigrating to another country or just having the guts to open the door and not knowing what is behind. Also the poem focus on the question of identity: is it possible to live in a country and stick to your own beliefs which may not be the beliefs of the majority. With opening the door Rich could also refer to is when she opened the door and acknowledged that she is a lesbian not knowing what the consequences would be.
Rich writes, "If you go through / there is always the risk /of remembering your name." Remembering one 's name - the antithesis of assimilation to remember
Adrienne Rich
Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.
If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your name.
Things look at you doubly
and you must look back
and let them happen.
If you do not go through
it is possible
to live worthily
to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
to die bravely
but much will blind you,
much will evade you,
at what cost who knows?
The door itself
makes no promises.
It is only a door.
A poem by Adrienne Rich, "Prospective Immigrants Please Note", helps one consider the dual perspective, the mother culture and the American ideals. Rich 's essential goal is to remember your families and origins.
First of all, the title "Prospective Immigrants Please Note" implied an immigrant 's plea to leave their country and go to another country. Upon reading the poem, though, I now see the title as Rich 's plea to immigrants not to forget who, what and where they came from.
Rich 's poem claims either leaves the land or simply stay. "Either you will / go through this door / or you will not go through." The reason you want to go through the door is to better your conditions for the family and yourself. Nevertheless one has to acknowledge that at a point in her [Rich] life she faced her partly Jewish roots, so this poem could deal with Jews or any people considered the 'other ' immigrating to another country or just having the guts to open the door and not knowing what is behind. Also the poem focus on the question of identity: is it possible to live in a country and stick to your own beliefs which may not be the beliefs of the majority. With opening the door Rich could also refer to is when she opened the door and acknowledged that she is a lesbian not knowing what the consequences would be.
Rich writes, "If you go through / there is always the risk /of remembering your name." Remembering one 's name - the antithesis of assimilation to remember