Anne Sexton Analysis

“When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure”. Most people do not realize what they have in front of them until it is gone. Anne’s work throughout her career was phenomenal, but it never became a treasured item until she no longer on this planet. Her memory lives in her artwork and poems and will always be remembered. In her life, Anne Sexton endured many pains throughout her life. As a child she grew up in an abusive unstable home. She then became a model, but dropped out of school and slowly sank into alcoholism and depression. Then, in her mid forties she committed suicide. The struggles Sexton went through influenced her confessional writing style. Her poems represent a seemingly ongoing diary about pain she endures throughout her lifetime. Writing these confessions was a way to get her pain out onto paper and show the pain she feels.
Throughout Anne Sexton’s life she endured many problems causing her pain throughout her life, but found an escape in poetry. Growing up, Sexton lived in an
Starting off, Sexton’s writing was specifically a way to release her bundled up emotions, but then it changed into warnings for others as well. Her writings were confessional as in they were like her diary but more structured. Later on in her career her writing transformed more into feminist works or things her readers could relate to more easily. Sexton writes, “A writer is essentially a spy; Dear love I am that girl”. (Sexton 1). In this poem Sexton conveys how she has been through many hardships but is now a spy writing as if to warn her readers of mistakes she has made or problems she has been faced with. She calls herself a spy as if to show that she wants to help others not go through the pain she endured. This shows how Sexton’s writing transformed from confessional writing to more relatable