Summer assignment: "Women and honor: Some Notes on Lying", by Adrienne Rich

“Women and Honor” discusses the relationship with women and the concept of lying. Adrienne Rich studied at Radcliffe College and Oxford, and has written several essays, novels, and poems. She was very involved in civil rights and promoting feminism. The NY Times described her as “a poet of towering reputation, towering rage, whose work…brought the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse”(NY Times). Her essay explains why people lie, and what comes of these lies. She claims that women lie to hide their feelings, and the end result is that the liar lives in fear and loneliness. The essay is a protest against the need for women to lie and live in fear of telling the truth and not being accepted. The intended audience is young adult to adult. Adrienne Rich used repetition, similes, and metaphors throughout this essay as rhetoric devices. Some sections were almost like poetry, beginning each line with ‘liars’, for emphasis. These rhetoric devices made the book more intriguing, and allowed the author to show her passion for her topic. The comparisons used allowed the reader to think deeper about the points she was bringing up. I believe that Adrienne Rich did fulfill her purpose well. Throughout the essay she expresses the dangers and reasons for lying, and in the end, and encourage the reader to seek more truthful, even if more different, conversations. She says, “That we both know we are trying, all the time, to extend the possibilities of truth between us. The possibility of life between us”(Rich 420). The essay ends expressing the notion that truth in a relationship creates stronger bonds and sustenance, allowing relationships to be more secure and last longer. The poetic structure of the essay, concluding with a challenge for us each to strive to become more truthful result in Rich accomplishing her purpose beautifully.