Anne Sexton, a poet who discovered her “poetic voice” as an adult, made works of poetry that focused on personal issues or works made specific to issues of women. Her poem “Young” portrays her work of personal issues. In this poem, she talks about how hard her life was when she was young. Sexton explains all the troubles in her life that can relate to most girls’ lives today in her poem. Some of these troubles include her parents being split up, being a lonely kid and other things that some girls have to deal with. Anne Sexton uses connotation, attitude and shift in the poem “Young” in order to illustrate the theme of suffering depression.
Connotation is just one of the literary devices Sexton uses in her poem “Young”. One example of how she uses connotation is when she says “a thousand doors ago”. This statement is saying that the poem is talking about her past, after she has been through many aspects of her life already, “the doors”. Another example of connotation in this poem is “my mother’s window a funnel of yellow heat running out”. In this statement, Anne Sexton is trying to tell the audience of how she sees her mom as warm and loving and that she can feel the warmth from outside. Finally, Anne Sexton says “thought God could really see the heat and the painted light” as another connotation. This statement is saying that she thought God would understand and see that she was struggling with her parents and with her life. Obviously, connotation is one important aspect that Anne Sexton uses in this poem to show the theme of suffering depression.
Although Anne Sexton uses a ton of literary devices in her poem “Young” to prove the theme of suffering depression, one of the most important devices is attitude. She uses atti...
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...es of trouble. To reiterate, Anne Sexton uses shift in her poem “Young” to prove the theme of how she suffered depression.
Obviously, Anne Sexton illustrates the theme of suffering depression in her poem “Young”. She uses connotation, attitude and shift to prove this theme to her audience. Since she is an author who works to explore personal issues or issues particular to women, she wants women and girls to know that all girls go through depression. She wants her audience to know that in times of trouble, if no one is there to help, God always is. “Told the stars my questions and thought God could really see”. Sexton’s poem relates to the outside world because many people go through depression and she wanted to get out the point that no one is alone especially when going through distress. That is how Anne Sexton shows the theme of depression in her poem “Young”.
Everyone has once been someone that they aren’t necessarily ashamed of, but something they aren’t anymore. When you’re in school, everyone is different; between the popular kids, the jocks, the cheerleader, the dorks, the Goths, and all the other “types” of people. In “Her Kind,” Anne Sexton shows that she has been a lot of different women, and she is not them now. In this paper we will be diving into the meanings behind the displaced “I,” the tone and reparation, and who Anne Sexton really is and how that affects what she is trying to let people see through this poem.
to the powerful imagery she weaves throughout the first half of the poem. In addition, Olds
In her poem entitled “The Poet with His Face in His Hands,” Mary Oliver utilizes the voice of her work’s speaker to dismiss and belittle those poets who focus on their own misery in their writings. Although the poem models itself a scolding, Oliver wrote the work as a poem with the purpose of delivering an argument against the usage of depressing, personal subject matters for poetry. Oliver’s intention is to dissuade her fellow poets from promoting misery and personal mistakes in their works, and she accomplishes this task through her speaker’s diction and tone, the imagery, setting, and mood created within the content of the poem itself, and the incorporation of such persuasive structures as enjambment and juxtaposition to bolster the poem’s
The reader reads in order to feel sorrow for the protagonist in a manner the reader can assimilate. Yet, it seems that the nature of Margaret’s thoughts is inherently dialogic or, to work with Duke’s terms, empathic: neither Margaret nor the reader uses the text in order to solicit pity from the other. What function would a “pity party” serve a reader by herself? To the contra...
These final words sum up her feeling of helplessness and emptiness. Her identity is destroyed in a way due to having children. We assume change is always positive and for the greater good but Harwood’s poem challenges that embedding change is negative as the woman has gained something but lost so much in return.
In Gwen Harwood’s poetry, the changes in an individual’s perspective and attitudes towards situations, surroundings and, therefore transformations in themselves, are brought on by external influences, usually in the form of a person or an event. These changes are either results of a dramatic realisation, as seen with shattering of a child’s hopes in The Glass Jar, or a melancholy and gradual process, where a series of not so obvious discoveries produces similar reformation. An example of the later case would be Nightfall, the second section of Father and Child, where the persona refers to her forty years of life causing “maturation”. For the most part these changes are not narrated directly but are represented by using dynamic language techniques to illustrate constant change in the universe of the poem.
The third decade of the twentieth century brought on more explicit writers than ever before, but none were as expressive as Anne Sexton. Her style of writing, her works, the image that she created, and the crazy life that she led are all prime examples of this. Known as one of the most “confessional” poets of her time, Anne Sexton was also one of the most criticized. She was known to use images of incest, adultery, and madness to reveal the depths of her deeply troubled life, which often brought on much controversy. Despite this, Anne went on to win many awards and go down as one of the best poets of all time.
During the process of growing up, we are taught to believe that life is relatively colorful and rich; however, if this view is right, how can we explain why literature illustrates the negative and painful feeling of life? Thus, sorrow is inescapable; as it increase one cannot hide it. From the moment we are born into the world, people suffer from different kinds of sorrow. Even though we believe there are so many happy things around us, these things are heartbreaking. The poems “Tips from My Father” by Carol Ann Davis, “Not Waving but Drowning” by Stevie Smith, and “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop convey the sorrow about growing up, about sorrowful pretending, and even about life itself.
When writing poetry, there are many descriptive methods an author may employ to communicate an idea or concept to their audience. One of the more effective methods that authors often use is linking devices, such as metaphors and similes. Throughout “The Elder Sister,” Olds uses linking devices effectively in many ways. An effective image Olds uses is that of “the pressure of Mother’s muscles on her brain,” (5) providing a link to the mother’s expectations for her children. She also uses images of water and fluidity to demonstrate the natural progression of a child into womanhood. Another image is that of the speaker’s elder sister as a metaphorical shield, the one who protected her from the mental strain inflicted by their mother.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading David Berman’s poem “Self-Portrait at 28”. Reading this poem made me feel sad, pensive and nostalgic for the events in my life that I miss. I’m not twenty eight, but I feel like the events that the persona talked about in this poem were very universal. I also sympathize with the persona’s depression and feeling with loneliness. I can relate to feel like I am bothering someone while I am talking to them. I often get scared reaching out to people because I am always afraid I am bothering them. The voice is this poem were very strong. The uses of imagery, tone and symbolism help make this poem strong.
In the first stanza, Sexton begins the poem with: “You always read about it” and with this immediately begins her comical mockery of “Cinderella” (line 1). This line alone sets the sardonic tone that continues throughout the poem. Instead of saying “You always hear about it” or “You always see”, by saying we always “read” about it, Sexton implies that these scenarios are only heard of in stories. One may think that the
The poem "Her Kind" by Anne Sexton displays an aspect of the author’s life in a more emotional state. In the poem Sexton describes her journey of life as a woman; she remembers all the hardships she has been challenged with and emphasizes that her path through life was not all in sunshine. Throughout, the poem she uses incredible language to describe her hardships that she faced. She overall connects this to the fact that she is a woman. Anne is not angry at the fact that she has to face all the hardships as a woman but instead agrees that she is a brave woman. Although, her journey through life has made her feel constantly criticized as well as an outcast in the female world, she believed that she is just one of a kind.
...tudied today but the inspiration for her poetry, her constant depression, forced Sexton to take her own life. In her work, she expressed the inner torture she endured and explored the depths of her mind and society.
While other writers use their poetry to decipher the meaning of life, Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea was busy writing about how to live it. Five of her poems, “Jupiter and the Farmer,” “The Tree,” “The Shepherd Piping to the Fishes,” “Love, Death, and Reputation,” and “There’s No To-Morrow,” convey strong messages to the reader about how to live their lives. In her poetry, Anne Finch uses anecdotes to help illustrate the validity of her statements, thereby providing the reader with a strong, meaningful, and important message about how life should be lived.
Sexton compares Plath’s suicide to an old belonging in the couplet, “what is your death but an old belonging” (54-55). The couplet serves to convey that the speaker is moving past the initial shock of her friend’s death. The comparison of Plath’s death to an old belonging implies that the speaker used to have a strong emotional attachment and understanding of Plath’s suicide, but now, it is more of a memory that lingers than something that consumes her mind every day. Even so, the death of Plath still impacted the speaker on a deep level because Plath’s death involuntarily forced her to contemplate and to reflect on her own emotions and thoughts on suicide. She experiences an emotional journey that places her on the other end of the death in which she once fantasized. The term “old belonging” illustrates how the speaker previously dreamed and longed for death. However, after experiencing the emotional toll of being on the other side of the death that she once coveted, she reconsiders her desires. The tone has shifted from one of mourning and envy to something that she used to desire, an “old belonging” (55). The sharp left turn that is transmitted in the speaker’s tone articulates the emotional journey she has endured. Therefore, the relation of Plath’s death to an old belonging displays how the speaker no longer wants that death, but she still remembers what it feels like to be the person with thoughts of