Anne Sexton Reads Her Poems: Housewife & More (1966)

In the post-war years, motherhood was a social expectation so powerful it functioned almost like a civic duty. The baby boom was in full swing, and suburban streets were filled with young families. For women who had not yet achieved the image of the smiling mother with her children, the message was gentle but consistent: keep trying. Women were encouraged by husbands, doctors, and mothers-in-law to focus on what was ahead rather than what had just happened. Women were expected to maintain their appearance as a form of courtesy to their husbands and the broader social world. The female body was understood to a significant degree as public property that reflected on the family, marriage, and neighborhood. A woman who visibly declined was considered to be failing in a fundamental responsibility.

In the 1950s, it was very clear what women's roles were supposed to be: the American home. This was reflected in television, books, and school lessons. Women were expected to get married and raise a family, with the picket fence representing the ideal life. Men were expected to be leaders, take dangerous jobs, and hold important positions.

In 1950s America, new mothers were expected to perform a carefully curated version of themselves upon returning home. Appearance served as a moral report card—women had to appear rested, composed, and glowing regardless of actual circumstances. Fathers were excluded from infant care, with mothers bearing sole responsibility for feeding, bathing, and soothing. Rigid 4-hour feeding intervals, promoted by physicians, replaced responsive feeding. The clock on the mantel became the most powerful object in the house, dictating every move. Elder female relatives moved in to supervise and correct, with child-rearing wisdom passed like scripture. Laundry with cloth diapers consumed nearly a full day, doubled by twins. Mothers were expected to keep worry entirely to themselves—admitting fear risked being labeled nervous. The prevailing belief held motherhood was purely instinctive, so any struggle suggested lacking essential fortitude.

In 1957, the general idea that women should stay home was deeply rooted. The wife was expected to be beautiful with nice dresses and hairstyles, waiting for her husband to return from work with a glass of whiskey with ice, ready to take dinner. However, the reality was that many people were alone, including men and women who had to make their way on their own. Many women had suffered divorces and were raising children alone, while others had become widows during the Korean War and were not preparing whiskey for anyone.

Betty Broderick was raised in a strict Catholic family in Eastchester, New York, during the 1950s-1960s. Her family, with German and Italian roots, was affluent and successful in the gypsum production business. From a young age, Betty was taught that her ideal purpose was to become the perfect wife and mother. The traditional model emphasized the man as the absolute provider and head of the household, while the woman was responsible for the home, children, appearances, and family stability. This upbringing shaped Betty's expectations for her marriage and her identity as a woman.

Anne Sexton (1929-1974) was an American poet who wrote about dark themes including insanity, sexual obsession, and suicide. Despite her morbid subject matter, she was cheerful and funny, describing her mental illness as a visitor that came at unexpected times. She drew poetic inspiration from these unhappy experiences, creating work that invited listeners to share her pain. Her poem 'Mis in the Last Years of Her Life' describes the surreal atmosphere of institutional life. Sexton pioneered Chamber Rock, a format where poetry is read to musical accompaniment, believing poetry and music are 'very akin to each other.' She felt this format freed her artistically, allowing her to 'almost manage to get out of her own skin.' Her poems 'The Addict' and 'Sleep Longer' explore her complex relationship with sleeping pills, transforming clinical experiences into complex emotional narratives.

Anne Sexton (1928-1974) was a revolutionary American poetess whose life and work exemplified the evolution from the 1950s American housewife to the feminist icon of the 1970s second wave; her confessional poetry, which explored themes of mental illness, addiction, and female identity, established her as a paradigmatic figure in women's literature, and her posthumous works anticipated modern horror and punk themes, making her one of the most influential poets of the 20th century.

Anne Sexton was born in 1928 in New England, Massachusetts, in a wealthy family with distracted parents and domestic servants. She was the third of three sisters and was described as extremely beautiful. Despite her privileged background, she was not the most talented or accomplished of her sisters. Her father was an alcoholic, and her mother was obsessed with beauty ideals, constantly searching for defects in Anne's body. The only truly maternal figure was her aunt, who was later institutionalized in a psychiatric clinic. Anne did not excel in school and did not attend university. When she published some poems in a school newspaper, her mother accused her of plagiarism. She escaped from her family by marrying Alfred Sexton at age 19. When her husband left for the Korean War, she suffered from depression and attempted suicide. Her psychiatrist Martin Norman recommended that she write about what she felt as part of her therapy. This became the catalyst for her poetic career. She was hospitalized in a psychiatric institution, where she developed a transferential relationship with her psychiatrist. This experience opened the doors to her world of poetry and marked the beginning of confessional poetry, which Sexton and Robert Lowell helped pioneer.

Anne Sexton (1928-1974) was an American confessional poet who revolutionized literature by writing openly about mental illness, female sexuality, and personal trauma, using her poetry as a cathartic tool to confront her struggles with depression, alcoholism, and abusive relationships; her work challenged the literary canon's silence on women's experiences and mental health, earning her the Pulitzer Prize in 1967 and establishing her as a key figure in feminist literature alongside Sylvia Plath.

Anne Sexton (1928-1974) was a great American poet whose life was marked by mental anguish and profound creativity. Born in Newton, Massachusetts, she married at age 19, dabbled in modeling, and gave birth to two daughters while suffering from severe postpartum depression. She was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for the first of many times in her life. Encouraged by a doctor to pursue poetry, she enrolled in a local poetry workshop in 1957. Her work earned her a scholarship to study with Robert Lowell at Boston University, and by 1960 she had published her first collection 'To Bedlam and Part Way Back.' She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1967. Like other confessional poets of her time, Sexton gave readers an intimate look at the poet's own troubled psyche. The poem 'Courage' explores courage throughout the entire human lifespan, from childhood to old age, suggesting that courage is required from the very beginning to the very end of life.

This video explains how to complete a poetry assignment by analyzing the persona (the speaker's voice and perspective) in poems like 'Porphyria's Lover' and 'Siren Song', and examining the tone (the emotional attitude) in poems like 'Those Winter Sundays' and 'Barbie Doll', using specific words, phrases, and images to support analysis.

This lesson covers four essential elements of poetry analysis: (1) Characterization involves describing a persona's personality through direct methods (using adjectives) or indirect methods (speech, thoughts, effects on others, actions, and looks); (2) Tone represents the writer's psychological attitude toward the poem's subject, expressed through word choice and sound; (3) Mood is the subjective feeling a reader experiences after reading the poem; (4) Theme is the main idea found in literature, which can be identified through the title, poet's direct statements, or the persona's speech.

In the poem 'Husband,' the persona is a woman complaining to her husband about his neglect and mistreatment. The mood is pitiful as readers pity the mistreated woman. The tone is angry or lamenting, reflecting the woman's complaints about being despised, abused, and compared to worthless things. This example demonstrates how persona, mood, attitude, and tone work together in poem analysis.

Using persona in poetry—through dramatic monologue—is actually very revelatory of a deeper level of personality. The massive language used through persona can reveal truths that direct self-expression might obscure. This technique allows poets to access and express psychological dimensions that might remain hidden in more straightforward modes of writing, demonstrating how poetic form enables psychological exploration.

Tone refers to the voice quality of the persona that helps reveal attitude. It describes how the voice is coming out—whether it is sad, condensing, moody, or another emotional quality. Tone is an important element in poetry analysis as it helps convey the speaker's emotional state and perspective. A list of words used to describe tone will be addressed in subsequent classes.