Unraveling Gender Dynamics: Rita Dove's Poetry through a Psychoanalytic Feminist Lens

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Abstract

This research paper aims to investigate the ideas about gender roles, sexuality and gender expression in the poems of Afro-American
contemporary poetess Rita Dove, in the backdrop of the psychoanalytic feminism. The theory enables us to uncover layers of meaning related to gender dynamics, desires for artistic recognition, and the negotiation of identity. Moreover, it aspires to identify how her poems link together her sense of self with her affinity towards her Black sisterhood and her view of a contemporary woman’s loyalty to her biological identity and her roles ordered by the American culture of the 90’s onwards, when Rita Dove (1953-
present) was enjoying the peak of her poetic career. The study hopes to qualitatively analyze the poet’s concept of womanhood, the limitations of being one and what possibilities are stipulated by her for women of this time and age so that wo-men may coexist for a healthy society’s burgeoning.