Anne Sexton Housewife Essay

Anne Sexton was a poet and a woman, but most importantly, she was an outcast. Subjected to nervous breakdowns and admitted to a neuropsychiatry hospital, Sexton must have been all too familiar with the staring eyes and the judging minds of the public. Just being a woman in today's world often can be enough to degrade a person in the public's eye, let alone being labeled as a crazy woman. But Anne Sexton did not let society remain unchallenged in its views. She voiced a different opinion of women through poetry. In Anne Sexton's "Her Kind" the speaker of the poem embraces society's negative stereotype of modern, liberated women and transforms it into a positive image. Two voices, the voice of

Anne Sexton was known for using poetry to make sense of her perspective. In her elegiac poem, “The Truth the Dead Know”, published in 1962, she shines a light on her feelings towards the death of her parents.

Eveline worked and kept her house together because she assumed the role of her mother after she passed away. She kept her brothers fed and in school on time. She chose to assume the responsibilities and accepted her fate and the consequences. Her freedom as a child disappeared due to her choice of taking care of her family rather than advancing herself. After her brothers left, she had the opportunity to leave and start her own family but chose not to due to her feelings about her mother and her inability to leave the familiarity of her life. Although her father was abusive, she could not leave him behind due to her inability to escape her role. Many women during this time found themselves in a similar predicament of trying to escape their family but could not overcome the societal pressures typical in a Patriarchal society. Eveline was able to choose her fate and decide for herself what she wanted to do. By contrast, Jane was controlled and belittled by her husband. Jane and her husband differ in distinct ways; Jane is more imaginative and creative while John is more logical and practical. Their contrasting personalities along with Jane’s illness drives them further apart. She was isolated and had to perform basic tasks such as writing and secrecy to ensure her husband would not find out. Her desire for company is ignored by her husband and continued to control her. She had no choices and nowhere to go. His patronizing ways annoyed Jane but when she discovers the Wallpaper, she finds a new meaning in her life. There was something John could not take away. She discovered herself in the wallpaper and eventually broke free. The lack of Jane’s control in her own life caused her to resent John for his method of treatment for her illness. Eveline’s freedom and Jane’s lack of choices illustrates an important contrast in their worlds.. The privilege of choice is a very important, but

Many great literary and artistic geniuses have been troubled with deep melancholy and phrenic illness. Anne Sexton is an example of a poet with such quandaries who utilized her personal despair to inspire her poetic works. Sexton’s raw material on the inequality of women in a flawed society has sprouted an uproar for change.

Michael Portaro "Her kind" by Anne Sexton When I read this poem by Anne sexton it feels like she is taking us, the audience, on a bleak walk down memory lane. If you do any research on her, her life resembles that of a female lead from the tv show Mad Men. Sexton was a model as a young woman, married early, and tried her hardest to be happy as a housewife. She quickly realized that a pretty little home in the 'burbs wasn't all it was cracked up to be. These experiences often show in her poetry which lays bare all of the ways that her life has been punctuated by mental illness and circumscribed by rigid definitions of what a woman "should" do or think or believe.

A tone of underlying resentment towards Plath is felt by the responder by this mocking description following her death which suggests that he may feel responsible and further attempts to manipulate the responder’s perspective in order to clear him of this guilt.

In “Her Kind” the audience is taken along for a ride down the speakers’ memory lane. Though it is a sad poem upon reading it, the audience is empowered by the speakers’ story. Anne Sexton expertly utilizes imagery, characterization and repetition throughout her poem “Her Kind”.

Sexton’s poem carried the reoccurring motif of suicide. Through this I felt the importance of this word to her. The poet uses juxtaposition as she creates the word suicide to be beautiful, calling it a ‘drug so sweet’ and an ‘unnamed lust’. I was sympathetic towards her because she felt that suicide was the only escape from her life and her mental illness. Sexton has “taken on his craft, his magic.” The poet’s personification allows us to see the thrill and enchantment of suicide that our poet experiences. It fascinates sexton as it allows her to feel pain; a feeling she finds magical. I was made to feel more sympathetic towards the character as it draws her in without her will, consuming her mind and body. When she feels suicidal she perceives

Biographers place great emphasis on Sexton's psychiatric treatment, which was significant as evidenced by the content of her poetry. And, it is possible, given her nonconformism that Sexton suffered from a borderline personality disorder. There are reports of her schizophrenic language, for instance, as well as her tendency to enter some sort of trance at the end of her psychiatric treatment sessions. She apparently did not want to end the sessions, perhaps because of emotional and social needs.

Anne Sexton suffered greatly from depression and made it clear to her readers that it was no secret. She was a strong woman and played several roles during her lifetime. Anne was a daughter, wife, mother, and an isolated poet. ‘Her Kind’ was a poem written by Anne in the sixties and is filled with symbolism; taking her readers on a journey through many identity shifts. The first stanza has ‘I’ in it repeatedly, allowing her readers to grasp the fact that she is the poet and the speaker.

“Wanting to Die,” by Anne Sexton was a poem written in 1964 in her book, Live or Die, just ten years before she killed herself. During this time, Sexton’s poetics was highly controversial in society because of the introduction of confessional poetry. Sexton often wrote about her own personal feelings and anguish as she struggled with mental illness and the wish to kill herself. Alicia Ostriker put it best when she said, “What is most distressing about Sexton, I think, is her quality of unresignedness. She writes more fiercely than any poet in our time about physical and mental bliss and the holiness of the heart's affections” (Ostriker 11).

Anne Sexton described herself in a letter as “the woman of poems, the woman of the kitchen, the woman of the private (but published) hungers.” I argue that because she indited about taboo subjects and inopportune appetite she expanded the collective consciousness and gave more preponderant liberation to women. Her designation is solitary could shock a reader who is acclimated to the image of a docile and duteous 1950s

The poetic composition, “Her Kind,” is Anne Sexton’s confessional, a devotion allowing female readers a keen awareness of the knowledge that they are not forsaken within a male dominated society. The conception, of the work of art, arrives years before its birth. Sexton’s psychiatrist, Orne, speaks to the poet, expressing that her poetry allows women to consider “there’s somebody else like [her and] they wouldn’t feel alone,” in other words, there are women who are her kind (Perez 25). Additionally, in a personal journal, Sexton notes, “Somebody sees me, and I see myself through them. Then it’s all gone, the whole world falls apart” (Perez 21). One can undeniably associate this journal entry with the verse “A woman like that is not a woman, quite” (Sexton 513). Furthermore, Sexton is a woman who wears countless masks, in her personal life, mimicking the masks of the women within “Her Kind”. Concluding, it is not a great mystery, taking Sexton’s personal life into account, how she is capable of ascribing herself to a witch, a housewife, and a martyr.

Anne sexton (November 9, 1928- October 4, 1974) was an American poet who found love in poetry and was known for her highly personal confessional verse. She was born as Anne Gray Harvey to her mother and father Mary Gray Staples and Ralph Churchill Harvey. Anne sexton wrote about her long battles against depression, mania, and her suicidal thoughts, she looked to help people fight personal problems and ease their pain. Sexton suffered from severe mental illness for much of her life, her first manic episode taking place in 1954. After a second episode in 1955 she met Dr. Martin Orne, who became her long-term therapist at the Glenside Hospital. It was Dr. Orne who encouraged her to take up poetry. Sextons poetic career was encouraged by a mentor

Sexton’s poem allowed me to understand what it must feel like to live with a mental illness such as depression. I was quite frightened to find that Sexton constantly wanted to kill herself. Her confessional style of poetry allowed me to understand that this type of mental illness is a reality for people. The way in which Anne Sexton describes her desire for death, allowed me to understand the power depression held on her mind and body. The need to end her life must have meant that dying outweighed any need to live. Anne Sexton had two children and I am shocked she would abandon these two children for an escape from the world. I realised Sexton’s drive to kill herself was greater than the love for her own family. Even though it was selfish of