Living in Sin

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1954

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Further Reading & Resources

Related Poems

“General Review of the Sex Situation” by Dorothy Parker (1926)

In Parker’s debut volume of poetry Enough Rope, she writes a light poem about men’s and women’s behaviors in love. Her assessment that “Woman wants monogamy; Man delights in novelty” (Lines 1-2) seems to be rearranged in Rich’s “Living In Sin.” The woman in Rich’s poem seems to be inconsistent, questioning love in the morning and “[b]y evening […] back in love again” (Line 23). While the tone of both poems differs, the focus on the two sexes along with the general conclusion, indirectly present in Rich’s but directly stated in Parker’s poem, “What earthly good can come of it?” (Line 8), is similar.

“You All Know the Story of the Other Woman” by Anne Sexton (1969)

In this poem, from Sexton’s Love Poems collection, Sexton uses third-person pronouns, like Rich, to speak of an unspecified woman who is a man’s “selection, part-time” (Line 15). Unlike the domesticity that comes with living together, shown in Rich’s poem, Sexton’s shows the woman as used, placed, “like a phone, back on the hook” (Line 18). Both poems ultimately evoke a similar wistful tone: being someone’s part-time sex escapade without any longevity seems to have as much uncertainty as being someone’s full-time domestic partner.

“After Twenty Years” by Adrienne Rich (1973)

Included in the Diving Into the Wreck collection that Rich produced during the height of tensions with her husband, “After Twenty Years” feels like a sequel to “Living In Sin” if the couple in that poem married and raised children together. In “After Twenty Years,” “two women in the prime of their life” (Line 6) talk about the loneliness they have experienced for the past 20 years living their separate domestic lives. Now, with “nothing permanent” to stop them (Line 21), their lives can be anything they want, with the implication that starting over in “Living In Sin” would not be a choice these women would make.

Further Literary Resources

Arts of the Possible: Essays and Conversations by Adrienne Rich (2001)

This collection of writing, including four earlier essays alongside writings from the 1990s and two interviews, shows Rich’s commitment to change through the imagination of the arts. One essay from 1997 is about why Rich refused the National Medal for the Arts. Her refusal was a response to the recent vote to discontinue the National Endowment for the Arts and the overall cynicism she saw in the current political administration of the time. In another essay, “When We Dead Awaken,” Rich discusses her coming to terms with her identity as a female poet after sleepwalking amidst a patriarchal society.

Adrienne Rich: The Moment of Change by Cheri Colby Langdell (2004)

In this book, Langdell examines Rich’s poetry from the beginning to the book’s publication in relation to the female body, women’s sexuality, and nationhood. The author also examines the critical responses to Rich’s writings, which have extended beyond poetry to her controversial theoretical essays.

The Power of Adrienne Rich: A Biography by Hilary Holladay (2020)

In this first comprehensive biography of Rich, Holladay composites the transition of Rich from a rule-following wife and mother of three to a rule-breaking, outspoken lesbian-feminist. Holladay uses unpublished material to write an intimate biography, including letters and interviews Rich did with people she knew well.

“The Long Awakening of Adrienne Rich” by Maggie Doherty (2020)

In the November 23The New Yorker book review of Hilary Holladay’s biography of Adrienne Rich, Doherty mostly writes her own, albeit shorter, biography of Rich, positioning her writing inside the framework of her life, from her upbringing to her own experience of motherhood alongside her development of rheumatoid arthritis to her later days as a publicly perceived “angry feminist.” Doherty, in her review of the book, points out Holladay’s depiction of Rich as “a barreling locomotive,” both agreeing and disagreeing with the depiction in light of Rich’s life circumstances and actions.