In her work Split at the Root:  An Essay on Jewish Identity, Adrienne Rich allows us to explore her cultural identity as she attempts to determine its role in her life.  She covers the relationship between her present self and her past memories as well as the effects that anti-Semitism has had on that relationship.  She discusses various stereotypes and anti-Semitic ideals from the time period and I will cover whether those issues are still relevant today.

Adrienne Rich, a renowned poet, was born in 1929 in Baltimore, Maryland.  Being the child of Arnold Rich, a pathologist and the Chairman of Pathology at John’s Hopkins University, and Helen Rich, a concert pianist and composer, Adrienne came from a very well-educated household.  She often discussed her father’s high intellectual expectations of her in her works (Pope).

Growing up in the 1940s Rich struggled with her cultural identity as well; her father was Jewish and her mother was a WASP.According to Jewish law Rich was not to identify as a Jew because her mother was not a Jew.However, non-Jewish people still consider