Anne Sexton

Today I was so intrigued in class by a comment made when we were discussing "Donkeyskin". We were talking about the "Cinderella" character and people were shouting out adjectives to describe her. We heard "pretty", then someone shouted "blonde", the next person over said "blue eyes". Then Mrs. Robinson laughed in her unique giggle and said, "Sure, absolutely, Anne Sexton would hate her". I laughed and then found myself wanting to know more about this Anne Sexton lady. I know we had talked about her during our first discussion on fairy tales; I knew she was a feminist. However, I wanted to dive into who this lady was. The results were weird, but expected. I read her version of "Briar Rose", which is Sleeping Beauty. One person put it perfectly when they said:

"This poem does not empower the heroine in any way or make her any less passive or any more heroic than the Sleeping Beauty of the Grimms' story. What this poem does, as a feminist version of the fairy tale, is to draw attention to Briar Rose as a real person who is affected by the course of the story, rather than merely a beautiful object, a plot device which allows the story to progress. The poem draws attention to the tensions that develop within a woman when she is forced into passivity. It deals, also, with the terrors of incest and rape, in which a woman becomes a passive object, acted upon by a man, as often happens to women in fairy tales-- the presence of incest in the poem emphasizes the existence of this troubling aspect of fairy tales. Sexton's "Briar Rose" is a feminist telling of a fairy tale that brings out the complications and disturbing aspects of the tale and shows that the story cannot honestly end "happily ever after." It is a tale which raises questions and problems and forces the reader to think about the woman's role in the story." (http://www.gwu.edu/~folktale/GERM232/sleepingb/Sexton.html)

All of Sexton's interpretations of fairy tales discuss "what the woman is thinking, feeling, and experiencing. [Sexton believes that] is far more important than her appearance, and Sexton makes this clear by never once describing how the princess looks, but describing instead what happens to her."

In addition to her interpretations of fairy tales, I found it interesting that one thing Sexton is known her is her bluntness. In a time where it was unheard of she was not afraid to talk about real issues facing women. Many times she did cross the line, but she now stands out as one of the greatest feminine writers of all time.