Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Anne Sexton

Truly a confessional poet. Anne really reveals herself and her thoughts over her parent’s death in “The Truth the Dead Know.” “I am tired of being brave” she says in the first stanza. And, in the second she discusses how commonplace death is during this time of war “In another country people die.”

And in “One for my Dame,” Sexton (like Plath) portrays the conflicts women of the 50s and 60s faced. The narrator discusses the travels, business life of her father and later her husband. And, she sits at home and waits. She looks at maps and “each night with no place to go.” I wonder if the narrator is also worried that her husband will die on the road like her father did. Since the men in her life have always been the breadwinners this would leave her in a difficult position.

Sexton and Plath have a lot in common, not just in the themes of their poetry (death, women's issues, etc) but, they also faced similar struggles as mothers. And, they are hauntingly similar in their suicide attempts and deaths. In an interview I found, Plath discusses her admiration of Sexton and her poetry: http://www.sylviaplath.de/

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