Institutionalization
Let’s be clear: when Anne Sexton writes confessional poetry about the experience of being institutionalized for mental health problems, she is not engaging symbolism or attempting allegory. As with so much of Sexton’s poetry (though not all of Sexton’s verse as is mistakenly assumed by some), the poems featuring a recurring motif of experiences in these kinds of mental health facilities is strongly autobiographical. The very title of her first collection indicates the status that such experiences had in the formation of her poetic voice: To Bedlam and Part Way Back.
Imprisoned Women
The mental institution can be interpreted as a place of escape from the real world outside, but also carry connotations of imprisonment. Imprisonment associated with being a woman in society is primarily a figurative motif in the works of Sexton up until it becomes the dominant metaphor in the collection Transformations. This work is devoted to reinterpreting familiar fairy tales to ironically reveal the symbolism of imprisonment in the stories of heroines like Snow White, Cinderella, and Rapunzel.
Non-Autobiographical Personae
Although famous for writing depressing poems obsessed with mental illness and death, Sexton could also flash a wicked sense of humor. Therefore, one must imagine that the plethora of apparently quite fictional characters populating much of her verse might well be intended as symbolic stand-ins for herself at least partly to confound critics of the confessional school of poetry, some of the most ferocious being her own instructors. Although she had no brothers, a handful of famous poems present stories about a brother that retains all the emotional cache of her unquestionably autobiographical work. “Doors, Doors, Doors” is like a miniature three-act play featuring the characters of the Old Man, the Seamstress, and the Young Girl. The mother of “Two Sons” also veers widely off the path of autobiographical, but resonates emotionally as a symbol for the autobiographical poet existing between the lines.
Death
Death is a common topic and theme in the poetry of Anne Sexton, but when read in retrospect knowing that all this obsession was leading toward an act of self-destruction, the omnipresence of death takes on a greater symbolic meaning. The very act of writing confessional poetry begins with an intention to admit, consider, penetrate and, one hopes, understand. That Sexton was one of the most prolific of confessional poets yet still ended her own life by her own hand implies that this attempt at coming to terms with her demons failed. The recurring motif of death in this sense serves to transform it from self-indulgent obsession into a symbol of escape. Death becomes the thing capable of doing what poetry has not.
Watercolors
Perhaps the most strikingly haunting use of a symbol in the entire canon of Anne Sexton is the metaphor which ironically closes the literally titled “For My Lover, Returning to His Wife.” The meaning of this symbolism slices so sharply into the heart that it requires absolutely no explication.
“She is solid.
As for me, I am a watercolor.
I wash off.”
