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Shvoong Home>Books>Poetry>Her Kind Review

Her Kind

Article Review   by:Sententia     Original Author: Anne Sexton
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Trapped in a Box an analysis of Anne Sexton’s “Her Kind” To live only by societies standards is like a slow death indeed. In the poem “Her Kind”, Anne Sexton writes of the difficulties in being an “out of the ordinary” in society. In the first verse Sexton use the analogy of a witch’s life to describe the feeling of seclusion, and the need to hide one’s true self from those live the “normal life”. The monotony of such a life is best described when Sexton explains, “Dreaming evil I have done my hitch/ Over the plain houses light by light”(3,4) and so representing the conformity around her. Describing also the life of an outcast and how one as such is perceived as subhuman, she goes on to say, “Lonely thing twelve fingered, out of mind/ A woman like that is not a woman quite.”(5,6) Through the body of the poem she continues to delve into the boredom of daily life, and the frustrations with it. Speaking of the home, she tells of her “cave in the woods” and all its traditional amenities, “Filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves/ closets, silks, innumerable goods.” Sexton admits to her own conformity, comparing her own routine to an attempt to please mindless onlookers, here describes as “worms and elves”. “A woman like that is misunderstood,” for her depth of thought and character go unnoticed.(13) As the poem draws to a close, the narrator is taken from this town that has so forsaken her, and expresses the burn still left from their scrutinizing eyes. She has survived the torment of their judgment and found acceptance within, withdrawing from their world. “Where the flames still bite my thigh/ And my ribs crack where your wheels wind/ A woman like that is not ashamed to die/ I have been her kind.”(18-21)
Published: August 31, 2005   
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  1. Answer   Question  :    In the poem her kind I am well... At a loss for an explanation for the third and final stanza. Can anyone explain it to me? View All
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