The poem
Either you will go through this door or you will not go through.
If you go through there is always the risk of remembering your name.
Things look at you doubly and you must look back and let them happen.
If you do not go through it is possible to live worthily
to maintain your attitudes to hold your position to die bravely
but much will blind you, much will evade you, at what cost who knows?
The door itself makes no promises. It is only a door.
This short poem is framed as a notice to people thinking of crossing into a new place. Its title sounds like an official sign. The poem itself is about a single door and the choice to go through it or not.
It weighs both options without taking sides. Going through brings risk, strange new sight and the chance of remembering who you are. Staying brings a worthy life, but also blindness and unknown cost. The poem ends by insisting that the door promises nothing. The door can be read as a literal border or as any threshold of change.
The first stanza states the choice. "Either you will / go through this door" or you will not. The poem sets out only these two options.
The second stanza describes going through. If you do, "there is always the risk / of remembering your name." The stanza names this as the danger of crossing.
The third stanza describes life on the other side. "Things look at you doubly." You must look back at them. You must "let them happen."
The fourth stanza turns to the other choice. If you do not go through, the poem says, "it is possible / to live worthily." The sentence continues into the next stanza.
The fifth stanza lists what staying allows. You can "maintain your attitudes" and "hold your position." You can also "die bravely."
The sixth stanza gives the cost of staying. It warns that "much will blind you" and much "will evade you." The stanza ends with a question: "at what cost who knows?"
The last stanza turns to the door itself. The door, it says, "makes no promises." Nothing is guaranteed on either side. The poem ends flatly: "It is only a door."
The poem is built on a choice between two paths. The opening "Either" and "or" allow no middle way. Each path gets its own account, one after the other. The poem gives neither a clear advantage. The reader is left to weigh them.
Crossing changes how you know yourself. The "risk / of remembering your name" reverses an expected fear. One might expect crossing to make you forget who you were. Here it makes you remember. One reading is that facing the new forces you to recognise your own identity and origins.
The new side brings a double way of seeing. "Things look at you doubly," and you must look back. The line suggests being seen as a stranger while seeing strangely yourself. The instruction to "let them happen" asks for openness rather than control.
Staying has real value and hidden losses. To "live worthily" and "die bravely" are not small things. Yet "much will blind you" and "much will evade you." The cost is unknown: "who knows?" Readers disagree on whether keeping one's attitudes is praised or quietly criticised.
The door itself is neutral. It "makes no promises" and is "only a door." The poem refuses to say that change leads to a better life. Whatever happens depends on the one who crosses, or does not.
The tone is cool and impersonal, like a public notice. Short, plain sentences address "you" with instructions and warnings. The voice does not argue or plead.
The tone stays even when weighing each choice. Staying is described with respect, in words like "worthily" and "bravely." A note of doubt enters with the question "at what cost who knows?"
The ending is flat and deflating. "It is only a door" strips away any drama. The understatement hints at dry irony about promises made to newcomers.
The poem has 21 lines in 7 stanzas of 3 lines each. The lines are very short, from 3 to 7 syllables. It is free verse with no regular metre.
There is no regular rhyme scheme. Instead, key words return at line ends. The word "through" closes several lines, and its sound is echoed by "you." The word "door" ends a line in the first stanza and also ends the last line, so the poem is framed by its central image. The tercets and short lines give the poem the look of a spare, official notice.
go through this doorThe door stands for a threshold of change. It may be a literal border or any life-altering choice.
or you will not go throughThe line completes the either-or of the opening. It sets two paths in stark opposition.
of remembering your nameRemembering is called a risk. The poem suggests self-knowledge can be dangerous.
Things look at you doublyObjects seem to watch the newcomer. The line conveys the strangeness of seeing and being seen in a new place.
to hold your positionThe to phrases of lines 13 to 15 repeat in a list. They set out what staying makes possible.
to die bravelyBravery is granted to the one who stays. It unsettles any easy view that only crossing takes courage.
at what cost who knows?The question leaves the cost of staying open. It is the poem's only question.
makes no promisesThe door is spoken of as if it could promise. Denying it that power removes any guarantee.
It is only a door.The last line shrinks the symbol back to an object. It makes the choice the reader's alone.
The poem has been on americanpoems.com since 2004. It was the site's Poem of the Day on May 25, 2006. Readers left 12 comments on it between 2004 and 2010.
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Readers
The metaphor of a door is intensely powerful to me; and the idea of doors I haven't opened, brushed past on my way to somewhere else haunts me, always. I don't know that what I say here is meaningful or insightful, or anything spectacular in any way, but I do know that this poem has always been one that so resonates with me that it seems a crime to not say something...and I do not want to brush past that door.
I have read this poem a number of times and I believe this poem is about immigrants and how they have a choice to leave their country or not. The part: "The door makes no promises", I believe means that nobody is going to promise you that you are going to have a wonderful, joyous life in the new country, it is only a door, to go through or not to go through.
Please see "A Promise and a Way of Life: White Anti-Racist Activism" by Becky Thompson for some great analysis of this poem. Thompson takes it to be referring to the choice faced by white people about whether to go through the door and take on the struggle against racial prejuduice, as opposed "to maintain your attitudes/to hold your position". In that context, the risk of remembering one's name is the very serious risk inherent in looking honestly at my own white roots, where I might discover that my ancestors were slave traders or massacred indigenous people at Wounded Knee.
I think the above reading is way off. Adrienne Rich never had to look seriously at her "white roots" because she didn't have them; she was Jewish. And maintaining attitudes is not cast in a negative context, but listed with living worthily - she implies that it is good. If you go through there is always the risk of remembering your name. Remembering one's name - the antithesis of assimilation. To remember one's name…
Read the whole commentI think the above reading is way off. Adrienne Rich never had to look seriously at her "white roots" because she didn't have them; she was Jewish. And maintaining attitudes is not cast in a negative context, but listed with living worthily - she implies that it is good.
If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your name.
Remembering one's name - the antithesis of assimilation. To remember one's name is to remember tribal affiliations, family, and origin. This was especially true for Jewish immigrants, who went from using the Hebraic construct "Yitzhak ben Ya'akov" to Isaac (or even Ida) Jacobs.
Things look at you doubly
and you must look back
and let them happen.
Perhaps the difficulty of adapting to a dual perspective, with the mother culture and the American ideals at conflict.
If you do not go through
it is possible
to live worthily
to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
First generation American Jews found it very difficult to live according to tradition; America gave them the freedom to assimilate, and most welcomed it. It was much easier to follow strict rules in the European ghettos, where keeping Mosaic Laws was the norm.
to die bravely
In pogroms, wars, and gas chambers - the eventual ends of the ones who stayed behind.
but much will blind you,
much will evade you,
at what cost who knows?
The Rabbis taught that to immigrate to American was to cease being Jewish; that their families would assimilate and fade away in a few generations. Many, many families stayed in Europe because of this, and often only part of a family would come over. This strikes me as another of her poems heavily influnced by the Holocaust - people stayed behind so they wouldn't cease to exist as Jews, and were annihilated.
Just my two cents.
I believe that comment #4 above is most appropriate.
However there is still a door! There are not many legal doors any more anywhere else! A door without any promise is better than none!!
Comment number four states that Adrienne Rich was jewish, which is not quit correct. Her father was jewish but she defined herself over the female line. So she was raised by her family after christian beliefs. And also why should she not have white roots, she definetly is white in the first place, if her belief is christian or jewish is a second thing. Nevertheless one has to acknowledge that at a point in her life…
Read the whole commentComment number four states that Adrienne Rich was jewish, which is not quit correct. Her father was jewish but she defined herself over the female line. So she was raised by her family after christian beliefs. And also why should she not have white roots, she definetly is white in the first place, if her belief is christian or jewish is a second thing.
Nevertheless one has to acknowledge that at a point in her life she faced her partly jewish roots (see essay: split at the root), so this poem could deal with jews or any people considered the 'other' immigrating to another country or just having the guts to open the door and not knowing what is behind. Also the poem focus on the question of identity: is it possible to live in a country and stick to your own beliefs which may not be the beliefs of the majority. With opening the door Rich could also refer to herself when she opened the door and acknoledged that she is a lesbian not knowing what the consequences would be.
this peom was awsum it provided me with alot of detail about multi rasism acts and help me along with my essay:)..
This poem is the most memorable poem for me than any of other poems that I have read, because I myself is an immigrant and it means so much for me. I love the way Andrienne Rich compared the port of entry to the door and giving an alternative to the immigrants to stay or not. The most important line that I think is the one that says "If you go through there is always the risk of remembering your name" because during 1920's when people immigrated from Europe, US used to change their names for a reason that they couldn't prounce their names. I dont think that was a good act because changing names is bad, its so hard for them that they cant even remember their name.
Tarun, 14
there are always doors to open in life, not only for immigrants, and we never know what we will find behind...This poem inspires me and suddendly i like the doors... Or not...Who knows ?
it is a good poem and it has a meaning to it
I'm doing this english report and we have to read this poem........that's it.
as far as i see, all the comments about this poem approaches the subject as immigration, homeland etc. i would like to mention that adrienne rich discovered that she was a lesbian, when she was married and had children. so "the door" may also symbolize her situation as to whether to accept her new identity or not.. at last, she chooses to accept it, to go through the door, and divorces from her husband, which leads him to commit suicide and die..