Reality vs. the Dream Dreaming of a place to be free, to be alive, and to be anyone but who you are. Tigers and daydreams keep the sanity of two women, who miss and long for the freedom that is no longer theirs. In “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” by Adrienne Rich and “Day Star” by Rita Dove, the theme of women both longing for freedom that is not aloud due to their family obligations. There are similarities and differences in the theme that Rich and Dove choose to portray, by doing this both poets are saying how most women feel about the obligations put on them by society to play a “woman’s role”. One of the first very apparent differences between the two poems would be their family obligations. In “Daystar”, the woman feels as though her child was number one, and was over whelmed by the day after day…show more content… Freedom is one of the themes similar in both poems, both poets wanted to make sure the reader sees the want to live a free life. In “Daystar” Dove says, “think of the place that was hers for an hour-where she was nothing, pure nothing, in the middle of the day” (19-22). The woman is thinking about that one hour in the middle of the day that is the only time where she is a loud to be free. Free to be alone no children no husband just her, to be “pure nothing” meaning to be nothing to anybody, dreaming to be free. In “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” Rich writes,” The tigers in the panel that she made/will go on prancing, proud and unafraid” (11-12). The tigers represent her freedom and no matter what happens in her life, in the panel, which represents her “dream” the tiger is always free and unafraid and proud to be free to do as it pleases and to be alone. Both women want to be free and get away from the life they have now. They want to have something that they can both cannot have except in death or in a dream and they understand that, but will take what they can get and make the best of