Anne Sexton : The Life Of Anne Sexton

A Puritan woman in the 1600’s who devoted herself to care for her family. Anne Bradstreet was a mother and a writer. Writing became a hobby when Bradstreet decided to give it a try because she had read much of poetry in so many styles and languages. Most of her pieces were written for teaching purposes in a small school where she served. The author kept most of the poems private for the following reasons: Bradstreet believed her work was unexceptional and at the time it was peculiar for a woman to be writing poetry. In the back of her mind, the author’s principal obligation was raising her children when writing was completed in her unused time. Through the use of metaphors, Anne Bradstreet connected among the

Anne Sexton was a junior-college dropout who, inspired by emotional distress, became a poet. She won the Pulitzer Prize as well as three honorary doctorates. Her poems usually dealt with intensely personal, often feminist, subject matter due to her tortured relationships with gender roles and the place of women in society. The movies, women’s magazines and even some women’s schools supported the notion that decent women took naturally to homemaking and mothering (Schulman). Like others of her generation, Sexton was frustrated by this fixed feminine role society was encouraging. Her poem “Cinderella” is an example of her views, and it also introduces a new topic of how out of touch with reality fairy tales often are. In “Cinderella”, Anne Sexton uses tone and symbolism to portray her attitude towards traditional gender roles and the unrealistic life of fairy tales.

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

In Anne Sexton’s poem “The Abortion”, she uses literary devices to reflect her heart wrenching decision of whether or not to abort one of her children, which reflects the style of confessional poetry because she is sharing her personal feelings and experiences. Anne Sexton was a famous poet of confessional poetry, where the poets write about their private experiences with feelings about death, trauma, and depression in their lives. Anne Sexton wrote from the point of view of an upper middle class woman. She had two children, and the stress of having them, gave her life long depression. Sexton was sent to a psychiatric hospital after the birth of her second child. “The Abortion” displays all of Sexton’s feelings that she has about her abortion.

The authors use of imagery paints a disconsolate scene of the struggles of young women. Anne Sexton grew up in a rather dismal home, noting abuse and neglect. Her parents were moderately wealthy, but mentally unavailable. Her depression took a turn for the worst after the birth of her first child. Since that severity wasn’t always there to haunt her, it

Anne Sexton was a junior-college dropout who, inspired by emotional distress, became a poet. She won the Pulitzer Prize as well as three honorary doctorates. Her poems usually dealt with intensely personal, often feminist, subject matter due to her tortured relationships with gender roles and the place of women in society. The movies, women’s magazines and even some women’s schools supported the notion that decent women took naturally to homemaking and mothering (Schulman). Like others of her generation, Sexton was frustrated by this fixed feminine role society was encouraging. Her poem “Cinderella” is an example of her views, and it also introduces a new topic of how out of touch with reality fairy tales often are. In “Cinderella”, Anne Sexton uses tone and symbolism to portray her attitude towards traditional gender roles and the unrealistic life of fairy tales.

Anne Bradstreet was a well-known poet in the 1700s. During her time, women were underrepresented in the literature work. Despite this, she managed to publish a number of writing pieces especially poems. Most of the poems she wrote, connect religion to her daily basis. Although she was fortunate to be the first female puritan in poetry, there were downside circumstances that impeded Anne in producing her work. As described on page 113, Anne raised eight children while having unhealthy condition. She was also looked down for being a woman, and lost her priceless people and property, yet she still managed to write poems, which is unbelievable. What aroused her energy in literature was due to her belief in her religion or Christianity. It played an essential role in her life as well. In other words, she depended solely on it to understand any tragedy happened surround her. In 1665, she lost her grandchildren and a year later, she lost the entire house

Anne Sexton wrote her Transformations collection after she noticed her daughter’s fascination with Grimm 's’ stories. Sexton asked her daughter to select a few of her favorites and she rewrote them with “adult” themes, including rape, incest, and fluid sexuality. In her retelling of Rapunzel, Sexton rewrites Rapunzel as the young and unwilling object of Mother Goethel’s sexual desires.

The life of Ann Bradstreet was not an easy life however, we can read her writings and get an inside look at what it was like to be one of the first females in a new colony inside of the new world. We will cover Anne’s life including: religious beliefs, tragedies, sickness, her thoughts on feminism and her deep love for her husband. Once done reading I hope you are able to see how inspiring she was and how hard it would have been for a female poet to gain notoriety in the 17th century.

Between the years 1633 and 1652, Anne had her eight children and many domestic responsibilities, but she also wrote her poetry which expresses her commitment to the craft of writing. In addition, her work reflects the religious and emotional conflicts she experienced as a woman writer and as a Puritan. Bradstreet was concerned with the issues of sin and redemption, physical and emotional frailty, death and immortality throughout her life.

Every author, poet, playwright has a subtle message that they would like present to their audience. It may be a lifelong struggle that they have put into words, or a multiple page book that took a lifetime to write. A poet by the name of Anne Sexton sought out to challenge society’s views of women by writing “Her Kind”. A poet, a playwright, and an author of children’s books, Anne Sexton writes about the conflicts of a social outcast living in modern times. She voices the hardships she faces through three different speakers in her poem. At the end of the poem, the woman is not ashamed nor afraid of whom she is and is ready to die in peace. In Anne Sexton’s poem “Her Kind”, the main idea the speaker is depicting is the multiple stereotypes placed on a woman, by society. Sexton’s vivid use of imagery paints a picture of the witch, house wife, and mother cliché, while also implying the poem is autobiographical as Sexton went through her own personal struggles during her life.

Circumstances: Jeanne- She and her family were typical Americans living in Los Angeles. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, her father was considered a suspect and was shipped off to Bismark.

The poem “Her Kind” by Anne Sexton describes different scenarios of a woman. In the poem, Anne Sexton uses three different characters to explain that she has been each of them in some way. Society places a gender role on what women are allowed to be and how they should behave, condemning the women who do not conform, trying to change them into society’s perfect view of what a woman should be. While this poem shows the author describing herself in terms of the supernatural, it ultimately shows that rebellion against societal norms for women comes at a cost, sparking judgement from a society that sees women as common housewives. Her imagery in the poem represents how she is seen as a disfigured and

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) and Anne Sexton (1928-1974) both explored similar themes such as tone, structure, and symbolism. Many of their poems were cries for help, which resulted into metal illness, depression, and suicide. In 1958, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath met, and much to their surprise had a few things in common. They both were fascinated with death and suicide. Both Sexton’s and Plath’s poetry are considered as confessional poetry in which they were very honest, depressed, and had suicidal or homicidal tendencies. Sylvia and Anne’s views on what happened in their life and on independence, are what nearly separates them from other confessional poets. Sexton and Plath’s poetry range over a variety of topics such as death, suicide, rage, and mourning. They both utilize a convincing use of symbolism, deep image, metaphors, and soul-searching. Plath’s “The Colossus”, “Full Fathom Five”, “Daddy”, and Sexton’s “And one for My Dame” and “All My Pretty Ones”, are very enraged and different feminist perspectives, giving different views on the relationships with a father and a husband.

In “Wanting To Die”, Anne Sexton illustrates vividly an analogy that compares one’s desire to commit suicide and drug addiction. Though this poem may initially seem to revolve around the themes of death and suicide, there are several examples in the poem that can be referenced to drug addiction and the intentions of the drug user. In general, the tone of this poem is luridly depressing as it produces an imagery that is painstakingly dark and morbid. It encapsulates the reader within the mind of the suicidal thinker through specific personifications of suicide and death. Sexton also utilizes metaphors and similes in this poem to describe how suicide conducts a mind of its own which engages in