Gervase 1
Tati Gervase
March 13, 2014
As a child grows older, they learn morals and life lessons through their parents, stories
and their environment. Nonetheless, children are often guarded from the truth, or fed white lies
to protect them from the dangers they face as their innocence wanes. The world is full of war,
lies, betrayal, and pain, and adults often try to protect a child’s innocence from being corrupted
by that. However, others believe that ignorance is destruction and will harm humanity more than
help it. Many poets, authors and critics often exploit the harsh truth of the world, and Anne
Sexton is among them. In her poems, “Courage” and “Cinderella”, Sexton differentiates between
what it means to live life with happiness and prosperity or live like a skeleton held up by lies.
Anne Sexton grew up as the third child to a neglectful mother and an intoxicated father.
Later, she married a suppressive and uncreative man and had two children with him (Phillips).
Unfortunately, after the birth of her second child, she developed post-partum depression and
went through many hospitals, treatments, and therapists. Auspiciously, one therapist suggested
Sexton use writing as a way to express how she was feeling, so she began writing poetry. Many
critics state that Sexton uses her own experiences to write her poems, as they are often “nakedly
autobiographical” (Courage). Her poem “Courage”, for example, “is an idealized version in
which the individual is at once a martyr to and savior of herself” (Semansky). As a result of her
troublesome life, she needed a savior and felt as though no one was there to help her, so she
created this poem; she could be her own redeemer. However, her other poem, “Cinderella” is not
so much autobiographical as it is salutary; she “weaves her therapeutic baskets, the terrible
threads of her private mythology” (Phillips). Her milieu is torturous and fatal due to her twisted
childhood and equally unsatisfactory adulthood, and her bitterness transfers into the poems she
writes.
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Sexton uses an abundance of techniques to communicate her ideas through her poems.
She is seen as a dark and twisted poet who oftentimes writes about wicked plots and stories. Her
poetry “repelled a good many” of potential readers due to its original and unique style (Phillips).
Those who have read her poems know that her diction seems friendly and buoyant at first, but
since Sexton is a satirical poet, copious meanings hide in the lines. Her meanings are dark and
change the perspective on how the reader looks at other events in life. For example, in line 107
of “Cinderella”, Sexton writes “their darling smiles pasted on for eternity”. This line would first
make them seem content because they have smiles, but the negative connotation of “pasted
smiles” shows that the prince and princess’s smiles are fake and forced (107). She styles her
poems with sarcastic and pseudo writing through denotation and connotation in her works.
Additionally, she engulfs her pieces with figurative language, mainly in the form of similes,
metaphors, allusions and personification. She uses these to allow the reader to connect with her
writing. For example in “Courage,” Death is personified when Sexton says, “death opens the
back door” (line 45). “Cinderella” alludes to a popular children’s book where the main characters
are called the Bobbsey Twins, two sets of twins frozen in time throughout the series. Figurative
language connects the writing to the reader, and Sexton uses it to connect the audience to the
lifeless and paralyzed prince and princess in “Cinderella” and the life-experienced “you” in
“Courage.”
Through her satirical writing, Sexton hides the meaning cleverly, but it can easily be
depicted. “Courage” is about the growth of a person from mere bravado to sincere
courageousness. Additionally, the character in the poem goes through life and develops his or her
own individuality. The sorrow and depression of the younger “you” as they face torture and
bullying transforms them into a person of confidence with recognition as to who they are. The
Gervase 3
renovation is perceived as “rose image” but the “transformation is death” (Blevins). Anne Sexton
used “Courage” as her own suicide note and explains why someone would be easily justified if
they chose to take their own life. However, “Courage” still displays a positive message by
allowing “you” to be content with his or her final resting place. Nonetheless, “Cinderella” puts a
dark spin on a Disney classic, and is neither positive nor exultant. Sexton forms lifeless and fake
characters, and the expected happily ever after is replaced by readers questioning the real
meaning of marriage and happiness. She makes it seem as though “the institution of marriage is
really a deathly stasis,” which bridges this poem to her failed marriage in her own life (Axelrod).
The insufferable agony associated with the truth can force it to become a taboo subject.
Anne Sexton, on the other hand, believes that people need to know the truth, or her perception of
it, and she expresses her beliefs through her poems. “Courage” is about the true meaning of
courage which is finding individuality and self-worth; “Cinderella” may seem like the perfect
story, but is full of darkness and sadness. The perfect story may be consisted of lifeless and still
characters, but could end in happiness by the reader’s discretion. Even though these messages are
dark and abhorrent, they come from a poet hurting as a result of a troublesome life, who
ultimately could not live with the pain anymore. Consequently, because of her suicidal death,
Semansky considers the possibility that her “final act was one of courage”, but it is “left for her
readers to decide” because she finally had the courage to do what she wanted to do. Anne Sexton
uses her poems to define happiness as animate and energetic, constantly moving and being
content with path chosen.
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Works Cited
Axelrod, Rise B. Sexton, Anne. "Cinderella." Poetry for Students. Ed. Sara Constantakis. Vol.
41. Detroit: Gale, 2012. 41-57. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.
Blevins, Adrian. "Courage." Poetry for Students. Ed. Anne Marie Hacht. Vol. 14. Detroit: Gale
Group, 2002. 124-136. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 21 Feb. 2014.
Phillips, Richard. Sexton, Anne. "Cinderella." Poetry for Students. Ed. Sara Constantakis. Vol.
41. Detroit: Gale, 2012. 41-57. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.
Semansky, Chris. "Courage." Poetry for Students. Ed. Anne Marie Hacht. Vol. 14. Detroit: Gale
Group, 2002. 124-136. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 19 Feb. 2014.
Gervase 5
“Cinderella”
and collects enough from the insurance.
By: Anne Sexton
From mops to Bonwit Teller.
You always read about it:
That story.
the plumber with the twelve children
who wins the Irish Sweepstakes.
Once
From toilets to riches.
the wife of a rich man was on her deathbed
That story.
and she said to her daughter Cinderella:
Be devout. Be good. Then I will smile
Or the nursemaid,
down from heaven in the seam of a cloud.
some luscious sweet from Denmark
The man took another wife who had
who captures the oldest son's heart.
two daughters, pretty enough
from diapers to Dior.
but with hearts like blackjacks.
That story.
Cinderella was their maid.
She slept on the sooty hearth each night
Or a milkman who serves the wealthy,
and walked around looking like Al Jolson.
eggs, cream, butter, yogurt, milk,
Her father brought presents home from
the white truck like an ambulance
town,
who goes into real estate
jewels and gowns for the other women
and makes a pile.
but the twig of a tree for Cinderella.
From homogenized to martinis at lunch.
She planted that twig on her mother's grave
and it grew to a tree where a white dove sat.
Or the charwoman
Whenever she wished for anything the dove
who is on the bus when it cracks up
would drop it like an egg upon the ground.
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The bird is important, my dears, so heed
and delicate little slippers.
him.
Rather a large package for a simple bird.
Next came the ball, as you all know.
So she went. Which is no surprise.
It was a marriage market.
Her stepmother and sisters didn't
The prince was looking for a wife.
recognize her without her cinder face
All but Cinderella were preparing
and the prince took her hand on the spot
and gussying up for the event.
and danced with no other the whole day.
Cinderella begged to go too.
Her stepmother threw a dish of lentils
As nightfall came she thought she'd better
into the cinders and said: Pick them
get home. The prince walked her home
up in an hour and you shall go.
and she disappeared into the pigeon house
The white dove brought all his friends;
and although the prince took an axe and
all the warm wings of the fatherland came,
broke
and picked up the lentils in a jiffy.
it open she was gone. Back to her cinders.
No, Cinderella, said the stepmother,
These events repeated themselves for three
you have no clothes and cannot dance.
days.
That's the way with stepmothers.
However on the third day the prince
covered the palace steps with cobbler's wax
Cinderella went to the tree at the grave
and Cinderella's gold shoe stuck upon it.
and cried forth like a gospel singer:
Now he would find whom the shoe fit
Mama! Mama! My turtledove,
and find his strange dancing girl for keeps.
send me to the prince's ball!
He went to their house and the two sisters
The bird dropped down a golden dress
were delighted because they had lovely feet.
Gervase 7
The eldest went into a room to try the
At the wedding ceremony
slipper on
the two sisters came to curry favor
but her big toe got in the way so she simply
and the white dove pecked their eyes out.
sliced it off and put on the slipper.
Two hollow spots were left
The prince rode away with her until the
like soup spoons.
white dove
told him to look at the blood pouring forth.
Cinderella and the prince
That is the way with amputations.
lived, they say, happily ever after,
They just don't heal up like a wish.
like two dolls in a museum case
The other sister cut off her heel
never bothered by diapers or dust,
but the blood told as blood will.
never arguing over the timing of an egg,
The prince was getting tired.
never telling the same story twice,
He began to feel like a shoe salesman.
never getting a middle-aged spread,
But he gave it one last try.
their darling smiles pasted on for eternity.
This time Cinderella fit into the shoe
Regular Bobbsey Twins.
like a love letter into its envelope.
That story.
Gervase 8
“Courage”
that you kept swallowing.
By: Anne Sexton
If your buddy saved you
It is in the small things we see it.
and died himself in so doing,
The child's first step,
then his courage was not courage,
as awesome as an earthquake.
it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
Later,
The first spanking when your heart
if you have endured a great despair,
went on a journey all alone.
then you did it alone,
When they called you crybaby
getting a transfusion from the fire,
or poor or fatty or crazy
picking the scabs off your heart,
and made you into an alien,
then wringing it out like a sock.
you drank their acid
Next, my kinsman, you powdered your
and concealed it.
sorrow,
you gave it a back rub
Later,
and then you covered it with a blanket
if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
and after it had slept a while
you did not do it with a banner,
it woke to the wings of the roses
you did it with only a hat to
and was transformed.
comver your heart.
You did not fondle the weakness inside you
Later,
though it was there.
when you face old age and its natural
Your courage was a small coal
conclusion
Gervase 9
your courage will still be shown in the little
ways,
each spring will be a sword you'll sharpen,
those you love will live in a fever of love,
and you'll bargain with the calendar
and at the last moment
when death opens the back door
you'll put on your carpet slippers
and stride out.