In an essay consisting of seven pages four of Sexton's poems are analyzed in an argument that asserts the root of the poet's depression comes from the definition of gender by a social patriarchy. There are no other sources listed.
Name of Research Paper File: D0_khsexton.rtf
Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
it is possible to make several reasonable generalizations about her style of writing as a poet. All of these poems are lyrical, filled with complex imagery and basically narrative
in their structure. These poems tend to dwell on death, but also on the way that the poet is pushed toward depression by the manner in which patriarchal society defines
gender. Writing primarily in the 1960s, Sexton obviously felt restricted by the gendered views of society during that era. For example, in "Her Kind," Sexton uses a narrative structure that
allows her to take on the persona of a witch, and to discuss the witchs death by fire. She describes doing typical "witch"-type things, such as flying around at
night. There are, also, numerous other references that fit with her assumed persona. This fanciful position allegorically expresses the frustration of the poet from living under a patriarchal system
that defines femininity in very narrow terms. The poem suggests that the poet has been so outside of the norm and the mainstream to such an extent that she has
felt like a "witch," ostracized from the rest of society. She writes that "A woman like that is not a woman, quite./I have been her kind" (lines 6-7).
In other words, to be a woman outside the accepted societal role for women is not to be a woman. As this indicates, any woman who did not fit
societys narrow definition of what constituted a "woman" was not considered to be a woman. In the 1960s, when Sexton wrote this poem, any woman who stepped out of the
accepted mold, i.e. chose a career other than wife and mother, was not regarded as being full feminine. The rebellion that the poet feels against this system is quite evident