Role of Anne Sextons Mental Illness in her Poetry - Research Paper Example

English 2 November’ Role of Anne Sexton’s Mental Illness in her Poetry Anne Sexton was a Twentieth century feminist Shewrote her first poem at the age of 17 which was published in the year book of Rogers Hall which was a preparatory school for girls in Lowell Mass. However her mother who belonged to a family of writers accused her of plagiarism. Her mother’s discouragement and her marriage to Alfred Muller Sexton II put a temporary stop to her writing career. However in 1954 Anne began struggling with recurring depression and began seeking counseling. In the beginning of the year 1956 her mental condition worsened which lead her to her first psychiatric hospitalization and her first suicide attempt. In December 1956 under the guidance of her psychiatrist Dr. Martin she resumed writing poetry. Although Anne was mentally disturbed and she attempted to commit suicide twice before she finally succeeded in taking her life on 4 October’ 1974 in her garage yet during her life time she flourished as a feminist poet (Commire and Klezmer 115-125). As it is a cliche that writing poetry has a cathartic effect on an individual similarly for Anne writing poetry had a therapeutic effect hence she enrolled in John Holmes’s poetry workshop where she met Maxine Kumin. Yet falling once again into deep depression Anne attempted another suicide in May 1957. Though she was hospitalized again yet she continued writing poetry and in August received a scholarship to Antioch Writers' Conference where she met W. D. Snodgrass. In 1958 Anne enrolled in Robert Lowell's graduate writing seminar at Boston University where she met Sylvia Plath and George Starbuck. During her life time she achieved various awards which includes Audience Poetry Prize in 1959, in 1965 she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in London, in 1966 she won a Pulitzer-Prize, in June 1968 Anne was awarded honorary Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard and eventually she won the award of full professorship in 1972(Commire and Klezmer 123-128). Colburn states, “On her twenty eighth birthday in 1956 she attempted suicide a month later she began writing poetry; two and a half years later her first book was published… ‘It was’ she said, ‘a kind of rebirth’ (7). Moreover, “Sexton always claimed that her career as a poet had the shape of a story; and that it opened not with the event of writing her first poem but with the suicide attempt that separated her from her former life” (Colburn 7). Hence it is observed that Anne Sexton’s mental illness acted as the mediator in initiating her writing career. Moreover other governing principles which influence her writings include depression, her experience of hospitalization as well as her suicide attempts. Schmidt and Warner also assert that, “…Sexton’s writing is inherently bound with issues of hospitalization, mania, depression and confinement all of which were factors in the poet’s works and her determination to write” (179). Anne sexton is often grouped with such poets as Sylvia Plath, John Berryman and Robert Lowell who were the leading figure in the so-called 'Confessional Movement'. Colburn says that, “confessional poetry is poetry of suffering. The suffering is generally unbearable because the poetry often projects breakdown and paranoia” (65). For example critics believe that a lot of poems in her first book i.e. “The Bedlam and Part Way Back” are explicitly about her experience in the mental asylum. As observed in her poem “Ringing the Bells” that she states, And this is the way they ring The bells in Bedlam And this is the bell-lady Who comes each Tuesday morning To give us a music lesson And because the attendants makes you go And because we mind by instinct, Like bees caught in the wrong hive, We are the circle of crazy ladies (Middlebrook and George 23). In this excerpt ‘they’ is referring to the administration of the mental asylum and the manner in which they treated their patients i.e. the detached and impersonal conduct. While ‘crazy ladies’ is a reference to herself as well as her fellow crazed individuals and the manner in which they behaved. Moreover her poems “You, Doctor Martin” and “Unknown Girl in the Maternity Ward” also deals with the confinement of patients in the hospital. Then again in her poem “Flee on Your Donkey” she gives an account of her experience when she was hospitalized for the sixth time as she says, I have come back But disorder is not what is I have lost the trick of it! The innocence of it! ( Middlebrook and George 75) These lines depict the disappointment and the poetess’s futility of being unable to change her situation. As she mentions in the poem, “six years of such small preoccupations/six years of shuttling in and out of this place/…I could have gone around the world twice/ or had new children all boys” (Middlebrook and George 75). Moreover it also stresses upon the fact that the writer has reached a point of suffering where it is unbearable yet she cannot do anything about it. In Anne Sexton’s poetry it is apparent that during the course of her career she has been talking about death as well as her suicide attempts as observed in her poem “Lullaby” she says, “My sleeping pill is white/ it is a splendid pearl/ it floats me out f myself” (Middlebrook and George 24). Then again in “The Double Images” she states, “I who choose two times/ to kill myself” (Middlebrook and George 28). Hence for Sexton her attempted suicides also acted as a mode of inspiration to create poetry. Berman also enlightens the readers with his interpretation of Sexton’s attempts of suicide as, “suicide becomes a temptation always to be resisted, the ‘unnamable lust’ Sexton writes of in ‘Wanting to Die’ still-born, they don’t always die/ but dazzled they can’t forget a drug so sweet/ that even children would look on and smile” (273). 2.3. Guilt Guilt is another important Aspect of Sexton’s poetry because it is also indirectly related to her mental illness. When her daughter Joyce was born in 1954 it was the year when she suffered her first phase of depression. Due to this reason, “Joyce spent her first three years with her father’s parents. Anne Sexton convalesced at her parent home and saw her children occasionally as she recovered her mother became ill” (Sicherman and Green 643). Critics believe that Sexton irrationally believed herself to be responsible for her mother’s illness and she felt extremely guilty for not being there for Joyce. Hence she talks about this feeling of guilt in her poem “The Double Image” as she says, “She turned from me as if death were catching…as if my dying had eaten inside of her/that August you were two but I had timed my days with doubt” (Middlebrook and George 28). This again shows her emotional turmoil which she was trying to deal with during her rehabilitation in the asylums. Although Anne Sexton’s mental illness and her attempt of suicides ultimately led to her death yet it is observed that in the hind sight it also led to the creation of her master pieces as well as the success of her career as a poet. Hence her depression and suffering in life played an integral part in stimulating her powers of imagination and enticing her passion to write poetry. “Kumin writes, ‘I am convinced that poetry kept Anne alive for eighteen years of her writing endeavors. When everything else soured…the making of poems remained her one constant’” (Tobin 45) Works Cited Berman, Jeffery. Surviving Literary Suicide. Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999. Print. Colburn, Steven E. Anne Sexton: Telling The Tale. Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1988. Print. Commire, Anne, and Deborah Klezmer. Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Waterford: Yorkin Publication, 2001. Print. Middlebrook, Diane Wood, and Diana Hume George. Selected Poems of Anne Sexton. New York: Mifflin Company, 1988. Print. Sicherman, Barbara, and Carol Hurd Green. Notable American Women: The Modern Period: A Biographical Dictionary, Volume 4. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1980. Print. Tobin, Jean. Creativity and the Poetic Mind. New York: Peter and Lang Publishing, 2004. Print. Read More