Anne Sexton as Part of Modern American Poetry - Essay Example

Anne Sexton through her relatively short and controversial career divulged in a diverse and distinct style of writing. It would be impossible to regard her poetry without so much as taking an insightful glimpse at her personal life. She is known as among the first to immerse in confessional poetry and her candor and even personal struggle makes for a compelling reading of her works. The honesty she evokes makes it sometimes difficult to remove one’s self from an instinct to capitulate to the author and focus on the persona of the poem. Surely, Roland Barthes’ ‘Death of the Author’ does not apply to reading Sexton. The person responsible for Sexton picking up the pen is her psychiatrist Dr. Martin Orne. It was May 29, 1957 and at her second attempt at taking her own life when Dr. Orne came up to her and told her she has something to live for. Her poetry is something that people just like her may find emphatic. She was then 28 years old with two daughters when she was admitted to Glenside Hospital after another breakdown. It was barely a year since their doctor-patient relationship that lasted for a decade. Previously, Dr. Martha Brunner-Orne, Dr. Martin Orne’s mother was treating her. It was only because Orne left Boston for Philadelphia that their medical relationship stopped. Later, when Sexton died, her revered therapist even went so far as to condemn her two succeeding therapists. One was alleged to have had an unethical affair with Sexton while treating her while the second who forbade her to see Orne abruptly stopped treating her (Hughes, par.11-14). Her mental illness is so entwined with her poetry that despite reproach, Orne allowed biographer Diane Wood Middlebrook to listen to confidential tapes in Sexton’s psychotherapy sessions in 1991 (Hughes, par.6-10). Her personal demons are such an integral part of her writing that it cannot be dismissed as a focal point for a number of her works. “I checked out for the last time, on the first of May; graduate of the mental cases, with my analyst’s okay, my complete book of rhymes, my typewriter and my suitcases” (Sexton, “Double Image”). From one of her earlier works, “Double Image” carries a lot of ground and is forthright in her struggles with mental illness. It was also an account on how she got started with writing. Written as an open letter to her daughter, Joyce, Sexton winds back and forth between her childhood to her adult life to her motherhood. It was an account of the way she got started into poetry, determined to put herself out there as an American poet. It is an atypically long Sexton poem which was divided into seven parts. The underlying theme of the mother and daughter relationship similarly contained in her other poems was ambivalent in “Double Image” which continues to be one of her most popular work. In her fifth collection, Anne Sexton rendered a modernized version of some of the classic and well-loved Brothers Grimm children’s stories in her book ‘Transformations.’ The book was characterized by a movement of her style and theme. It contained culturally evocative ideas present in the fairy tales and expounded on a darker and suggestive meanings by Sexton. She has transformed it by updating the language and the contexts to enhance their resonance to modernity and uncovered the dark interior that the tales contained. It was an uncompromising criticism of social order and presented antitheses of commonly perceived notions. The shift in her style and method did not taunt the ubiquitous themes of her life. The central premises of domestic life, insanity, parenting, love and death remained deeply instilled in her collection (George, par.19-21). “Briar Rose” or “Sleeping Beauty” was suggestive of a number of things. Sleeping Beauty was portrayed as an insomniac who needed sleeping pills to be able to go to sleep after the Prince has successfully awoken her with a kiss. The presence of death as after 90 years it was already close by and an intake of Novocain to stop the pain and that she was all the time in a state of trance is what makes the poem modern and concurrently melancholic. The sinister plot that insinuates at the end of the poem a tragic abuse of the father of her daughter and that it was never a prince at all from the beginning. It instantly transforms the context of the story into something sinister and devious. “Cinderella” on the other hand discusses the turning of fortune in a moment’s notice. With reference to Al Jolson pertaining to Cinderella’s appearance after her daily labor and the emphasis on a dove makes for an interesting rendition of the beloved classic. The dove hints to be something that is left by her mother to guide and watched over her. This is probably representative of the Holy Spirit as it is commonly deemed as a white dove left by the Father to guide over humanity. The unapologetic gore of the poem, with blood gushing and amputations, including doves mutilating makes it a poem that is enjoyed by a great number of people for its macabre rendition. “Cinderella and the prince lived, they say, happily ever after, like two dolls in a museum case” (Sexton, “Cinderella”). Probably the definitive phrase ‘they say’ contributes to the jadedness of the characters that the author wants to communicate. The concept of happy endings may just be that, a concept. “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” another Grimms’ tale, revolves around the virginity of the main character and the vanity that ensues not only with the stepmother but also with Snow White toward the end. It speaks of how far people go to attain beauty and what they are willing to sacrifice and commit so long as they realize it to be theirs for the taking. The pride and narcissism the queen bears to be willing to kill for her place as the most beautiful. The bluntness is what makes it distinctly Sexton’s, referring to Snow White as a ‘dumb bunny.’ Eventually the stepmother was killed as she danced to her death in ‘red-hot iron shoes’ in the poem. Writing in a time of the dawn of feminism as with her other contemporaries, particularly Sylvia Plath, who just like her ended her life with suicide and suffered most of her life with mental illnes, it is evident to regard the presence of feminism in most, if not all, of her writings. She was in the same way as Plath though not to be seen as an imitator, writing about personal struggles and utilizing their craft as a means of coping with their psychological dilemmas. ‘Trasformations’ as well as ‘The Book of Folly’ including her Pulitzer-prize winning ‘Live or Die’ all contained the issues that pertains to her as a woman, a daughter, a wife and a mother. It was a time when all of the American women writers were establishing themselves as equipped to be within the same ranks of what has been until that time a fairly male-dominated arena. She was included as among the successors of Emily Dickinson in the proliferation of women writers in the United States. Another one of her poems, “The Farmer’s Wife” draws the image of what can be seen as iconic Middle America. Land laborers growing cereal where the wife tends to the needs of her husband and of the household (Dalcorno, p.92). “They name just ten years now/ that she has been his habit;/ as again tonight hell say/ honey bunch lets go/ and she will not say how there/ must be more to living/ than this brief bright bridge” (Sexton, “The Farmer’s Wife”). The poem is evocative of the wife’s longing for something that is on the slightest a manifestation of love. Their consummation is described as ‘lust’ where the wife feels it an obligation to her husband to fulfill her duties in the marital bed. It is deliberate that her writings are rooted in her as a woman. Her confessions to love affairs, nervous breakdowns, mothering, including death shows her crude and raw feelings towards her life that may reverberate to other people. Considerably writing in free verse, the rhyme and lack of elegance in her poetry is inconsequential in comparison to the unrestrained and honest feelings and ideas that she is expressing. Dr. Orne was right that night when he told her that she has something to live for, that her poetry may be read by someone just like her and that they may feel they are not alone through her. The bounds of how a woman and what a woman might feel is perceived and deliberated as something that can be shattered by Anne Sexton and her poetry. Bibliography Dalcorno, Giselle Olivia M. "A Feminist Reading of Anne Sextons The Farmers Wife" Fragmentos Dec. 1987. George, Diana H. "On Sextons Career." Modern American Poetry. 1988. University of Illinois. 19 Apr. 2009 . Hughes, Samuel M, "The Sexton Tapes ." The Pennsylvania Gazette Dec. 1991. 17 Apr. 2009 . Parker, Alan Michael, and Mark Willhardt, eds. The Routledge Anthology of Cross-Gendred Verse. New York: Routledge, 1996. Sexton, Anne. 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