ANNE SEXTON's TRANSFORMIN6 VIEW of FAIRY TALES Dissert!
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FHE SHATTERING OF MYTH: ANNE SEXTON'S TRANSFORMIN6 VIEW OF FAIRY TALES POR ANA CECÍLIA ACXGLI LIMA Dissert! ação submetida à Universidade Federal de Santa Catari para a ofotençào do grau de MESTRE EM LETRAS FLOR I. ANOPOL1S Maio / 1992 Esta dissertação foi julgada adequada e aprovada em sua forma final pelo Programa de Pós-Graduação e?m í.nql&s para a obtenção do qrau de MESTRE EM LETRAS OpçÜo I na I és e Li teratlara Correspondente Prafa.Dra. Susana B . Funck 0rientadora BANCA EXAMINADORAS P rofa.Dra. S u s a n a E<, F un c: k 0 r i en t. a d o r a P r o f - D r . é 1 v i o A . Fun c k ( UFftSS. > Florianópolis,, 27' de maio de 1992,. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS in any work that wo endeavor to undertake we are; not alone?,. There are always many people who,, in one way or another,, help us Lo a c c: o m p i i s h ou r pu r pose s . First of all, I would like to thank my parents for their tireless support throughout my academic life; E n d 1 e s s t h a n k s t a m y a d v i s o r , P r o f a D r a , S u s a n a F u n c k , f o r her careful reading of the originals and relevant comments on the texts Hy gratitude to CNPq for its valuable support; Thanks also to the whole PGI staff for their attention and support; Last but not least.,, thanks to all my friends and classmates for their encouragement, and love,, 1 HE SHATTERING OF MYTH: ANNE SEXTON'S TRANSFORMING VIEW OF FAIRY TALES ANA CECILIA ACIGLI LIMA UN I VERS I DADE FEDERAL. DE SANTA CATARINA 1992 Supervising Professors Prafa.Dra. Susans BFunck In the present dissertation, 1 am specifically concerned with Anne Sexton ' s ~i ransf ormations a book in which she rewrites in verse sixteen fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm. Relying basically on the assumption that changes in meaning effectuated toy alternative retellings of fairy tales can tell us much about the culture from which it derives, I analyse six of Sexton's revisionist poems in terms of the transformations that women's social and sexual identities were suffering at the time the book was published, 1971. My main purpose is to verify how much Sexton has modernized the tales and demythicized conventional sex-role divisions and marriage expectations they con vey i v RESUMO Na presente dissertação* eu estou especificamente interessada em T r a n s f o r m a t i o n s onde Anne Sexton reescreve em verso dezesseis contos de fadas dos Irm&os Grimm» Baseando-me essencialmente na idéia de que mudanças em significado efetuadas por versões alternativas de contos de fadas podem nos dizer muito sobre a cultura que lhes deu origem,, analiso seis dos poemas revisionistas de Sexton em termos das transformações que as identidades social e sexual da mulher estavam sofrendo à época da publicação do livro, 1971. Meu objetivo principiai é verificar a quanto Sexton modernizou os contos e demiti ficou modelos cristalizados de papéis sexuais e expectativas conjugais que estes propagam,, I ABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER;; ANNE SEXION AND THE CR1TICS j. I 'S' HE BOURGEOISIFICATI ON AND MYTMICI2A f'lON OF THE GRIMMS' FAIRY VAL r.S AND I 'HE IMPORTANCE OF REVISIONISM .. ....... ......... ... 59 MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS IN 11 SNOW WHITE.," "CINDERELLA. " AND "RAiPUNZ EL " ............... .... .................... ..... »..... 33 IV FA i HERS AND DAUGHTERS IN "THE FROG PRINCE,, " "THE TWELVE urtwDING PR1CESSES, 11 AND "BLEEPINS t.<EALJ!Y i foR 1 AH ROS „..ONCL.USI ON ................................................ .1.4B . BIBLIOGRAPHY INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER ANNE SEXTON AND THE CRITICS When we must deal with problems;, we instinctively resist trying the way that leads through obscurity and darkness» We wish to hear only of the unequivocal r e s u 1 1 s . a n d c o m p 1 e t e 1 y f o r g e t. t h a t these results can only be brought about when we have ventured into and emerged again from darkness.». — Carl Jung., The Stages of Life ’1S h e w r i t e s 1.1 k e a rn a n ‘' u s e d t o h e the h i. g h e s t p o s s i b 1 e praise to the work of a woman writer in the male-oriented literary community of post—World War II America. What, would then be the general critical response to the poetry of an "uneducated" housewife „ rehearsing iter first moves into a poetic universe exclusively concerned with the "universaIity" of male experience? Born Anne Gray Harvey, Anne Sexton began writing poetry seriousIy af ter a suicide a11empt on her 281h birthciay .. in I956 Similarly to the women interviewed by Betty Friedan in The Feminine Mystique. Sexton could not find self-fulfillment in the r e s t. r i c t e d 1 i m i t s ! i o u s e w i f e r y i in p o s e d o n w o m e n " s i n d i v i d u a I patentialities. As; a victim of the mystique, Sexton was not even aware of the creative power within herself,, When asked by an interviewer why she had begun writing poetry somewhat late in life (she was almost 30),, Sexton explained:; Until 1 was twenty-eight I had a kind of buried self,, who didn't know she could da anything but make white sauce and diaper babies,, 1 didn't, know I had any creative depths« I was a victim of the America Dream, the bourgeois, midd I e~ cl ass dream,, All I wanted was a little piece of life, to be married, t.o have children...... I was trying my damnedest to lead a conventional life, for that was how I was brought up, and it was what my husband wanted of me., But one cannot build little white picket fences and keep nightmares out. The surface cracked when I was about twenty-eight„ 1 had a psychotic break and tried to kill myself (Kevles 84). Following hospitalization for suicidal depressiveness and thanks to the advice of her psychotherapist, who encouraged her to write as a form of therapy-. "don't kill yourself," the doctor said, "Your poems might, mean something to someone else someday".(84). Sexton found in writing a sense of purpose? in her life, a sort of a mission had been assigned to her-. writing now had became her chief responsibi1 ity„ Through poetry her feelings of self displacement and emotional chaos could finally come to a sort of order. Even if strictly formal and aesthetic (esp, in her early poetry), this order, paradoxically enough, gave her the freedom to expose ail the wild forces that had been so long imprisoned in her "buried self,," As Sexton herself put it in an interview to Patricia Marx, "you could let some extraordinary animals out. if you had the right, cage, and that cage would toe form" (80). Sex ton's poetic development goes hand in hand with her continuous struggle with psychological problems and recurrent hospitalization in mental institutions,, But determined to take her writing beyond the therapeutic-amateurish condition,, Sexton enrolled in a poetry workshop offered by the Boston Center for Adult Education,, taught by John Holmes,, a member of the senior faculty at Tufts University,, The1 workshop represented the second and one of the most decisive moments of Sexton's awareness of her own creative skills. The first,, as she herself tells us,, was among the "insane" people she met in the mental institution. In the language of the schizophrenics« Sexton found a poetic language— a language whose meaning is condensed and not ope stated,, a language not only of words but of silence (Middle oak 198). Among crazy peopler and removed from ne restrictinq roles of housewife and mother,, Sexton. t madwoman-. was able to look for a new identity,, speak, q a new lanquage. Phrough therapy, she was given a chance to decode her secret. yearnings and to estabi i i connections between her neuroses and her life. Among the poets in Holmes's worksop, Sextan experienced this same feel .trig of belonging somewhere. The displaced housewife had finally found a place of her own,, Trying to explain this feeling to an interviewer, Sexton compares the workshop with the mental hospi taI : 1 started in the middle of the term,, very shy,, writing very bad poems,, solemnly handing them in for eighteen others in the class to hear. The most, important aspect of that class was that I felt I belonged somewhere. When I first got sick and be?came a displaced person, I thought 1 was quite alone., but when 1 went into the mental hospital, 1 found I wasn't,, that there were? other people like; me,, It made me fell better— more real,, sane„ I felt, "these are my people." Well, at the John Holmes class that I attended for two years, 1 found I belonged to the poets, that. I was real there,, and 1 had another "these are my people?'1 (Midd lebrook V / ) ,. In the beginning, writing poetry represented for Sex ton delving into the depths of the unconscious for an understanding of her disturbed self,, After all,, she told an interviewer, "poetry milks the unconscious.