Rich had a fraught relationship with the idea of marriage, which corresponds with the attitude of other female artists of her generation. In the 1950s, the overwhelming cultural attitude was that women belonged in the home as wives and mothers. Talented and ambitious young women had to make difficult choices about their future, a pressure that their male counterparts did not face. In “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers,” Rich grapples with the consequences of early- to mid-century gender roles in marriage.

In the poem, Aunt Jennifer’s hands weave the tapestry by “fluttering through the wool” (Line 5) with innate skill and creating beauty from a few strings, like a musician playing an instrument. The reader knows that Aunt Jennifer is an artist who made the scene described in the first stanza: The tigers belong to her because she wove them with woolen string and thin air. Her fingers have a mind of their own, and they are driven to make art.

However, she finds “even the ivory needle hard to pull” (Line 6) because of her wedding ring. This “massive weight” (Line 7) limits the dexterity of her fingers and encumbers her ability to work her needle through and complete the tapestry.