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Université D'ottawa University of Ottawa Université d'Ottawa University of Ottawa At A Loss For Words: Pmbing Subjectivim in Anne Serrton's Z'h Book ofFoZ2y Supemisor: Dr. David Jarraway April7,1997 Submitted to the School of Graduate Shidies and Research at the University of Ottawa in partial fidfdmeat of the requirements of the Master of Arts degree in English Literature National Library Bibliothèque nationale 1*1 of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Se~hsenrices bibliographiques The author has gmnted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence dowing the exclusive permettant à la National hi.of Canada to Biblioth- nationaie du Canada de reproduce, loan, distriiuîe or sel1 reproâuk, prêter, disar'buer ou copies of Merthesis by any means vendre des copies de sa thèse de and in any form or format, making qyelcpe manière et sous guelp this thesis avaüable to interested forme que ce soit pour mettre des personS. exemplaires de cette thèse à la disposition des personnes intéressées. The author retains omership of the L'auteur conserve la propri6té du copyright in Merthesis. Neither droit d'auteur qui protège sa thèse. Ni the thesis nor substantial extra& la thèse ni des extraits substantiels de fkom it may be @ted or otherwise celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés ou reproduced with the author's autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisaticm. for my bmther, Paul 7 promise you love. Time will not take away that." AU My~o~ Anne Sexton Table of Contents Abstract Acknowledgements Note on Citation Introduction Chapter 1 Mother, Father, Pm Made Of Chapter 2 This Business of QDirtf Words Chapter 3 ThelhrthTheDeadgiMw Conclusion Notes Chmnology Bibliography and Works Cited Abstract After receiving the transaipt of one of her intemiews, Anne Fexbn archly commented to D. M. Thomas: Tes fmcinating to read though in places highly inaccurate. 1 am known ta lie, and 1never let myself domn(M 279). She overlapping spaces between biography and confessional poetry are immediately vexed, partidarly when Sexbn's confessions relate directly to a pmblematic self, a multXaceted personality. The genre of confessional poetry, by dennition, demands an intense use of personal experience, and Anne $exton's The Book of FoZLy does indeed spiU out the secrets of personal failun, emotional pain, sexual abuse, and mental illness; but the self that is matecl hughart, the self that is expelled onto a page, vacillates between a number of ostensible truths and threatens to undermine the very mre of confessional American poetry. What becorne finally the tenuou bths"of the body emerge bugh questions of matemitsf which are ultiaiately important to Sexton. She variously interrogates the relationships with her own mother and her two daughten and articulates the motheddaughter theme into visions which redound significantly on the division between the Imaginary and Symbolic stages of psychoanalytic development. Sexton plays out this distinction in images of language, hllngrer, and exmement, aU of which hold a central focus in The Book of Po&. Accessing these realms through the theory of Jacques Lacan and Julia fisteva, and peripherally through Mary Douglas' anthropological investigations, dows one to intemgate the fictional coherence of these notions more closely and to perceive the inevitability of Sexton's ka1 act of self-sacrifice. The idea for this pmject was born out of a graduate semuiar led by Dr. David Jarraway at the University of ûttawa in the fdof 1995. For his des as my advisor and adopted persona1 tutor, 1 thank Dr. Jarraway for his support and encouragement over these past months. 1am graWto Mitch Rowat, Esther Wohlgemut, and Professor ha Ferris for their helpfid advice and wnstructive criticism. Thrrnk you tn Paula Greenwood and Veronica Tremblay fbr their administrative assistance and to the "Inter-Librarf' staf'f at Morisset for prompt and efficient service. To Patti Muir, I extend my special thanks for her ClariQ, sensitivity, and ceaseless good humour. Diana Wood Middlebmlfs biography of Sexton has ben an invaluable resource and stands testimony to the distinct allure and creative excellence of Anne Segton. 1 am indebted to my parents for their continueci support and understanding throughout myYoreign" education- And, Gnally, to Mark Thank pufor your patience and pur confidence in my abiliw to nnish what 1 had started. With my love. Note on Citation Works frequentJy uted are abbreviated as follows: BE Anne Sexton, The Book of FoCy (Boston: Houghton Minlin, 1972) Colbuni: Steven Colbum, Anne S&om Tdling the T& (AnnArbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1988) CP: Anne Sexton, The Complete Poems (Boston: Houghton Mffh, 1981) Ldters: Gray Sexton, Linda and Lois Ames, eds. Anne $&on- A Self- Portmit in Lettem (Boston: Houghton Mifnin, 1977) M: Diana Wood Mddlebmk. Anne Sedon: A Aiography (Boston: Houghbn m,1991) McClatchr Anne Sexton: The Artist and Hm Critics, ed. J. D. McClatchy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978) Oedipus: Diana Hume George, Mipushm lihe Poetq of Anne Sexton (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1987) Preface Who 1s She? Where 1s She? Confessional poetry, defhed by Paul Lacey as 'a new opemess, a willingness to make poetry of experience unmediated by such doctrines of objectivity as the mask, the persona, or the objective correlative, a preoccupation with extraordinary experiencesn (217),adheres to the Modernist sensibility that prioritizes the autonomy of the self. The identification, therefore, of Sexton's UseWbody"bifurcations, elucidated so deady by Diana Hume George's "The Zeal of Her House,"directs the reader to an appreciation of the "psychic fkagmentation"that characterizes even as it distorts a portrayal of the subjective persona that was Anne Sexton. Despite the forcefûl and candid determination with which Sexton attempted to draw the contours of her seK-'naked and quivering on the examination table of her art" (Gray Sexton 280)--her "vision of unification [of body and selfJremainecl nostalgie or wistful, pmjected more ohthan achievedw(&ii'pza 57). Nevertheless, the qgixotic and impassioned personality with which SegtDn attempted to negotiate the triumphs and torments of her existence, through her intricate weaving of psychic and artistic strains, valonzes Sexton's distinctive position within the confessional canon. Thn,ughout her life, Anne Sexton grappled with identiw. Her long-term psychothempist Dr. Martin Orne expressecl his concern that she tried to "live up to the 1950s image of the gmd deand mother,"but found the task inordinately diffidt. She was "helpless," resentfid, and embittered about her inabiliw to mpe with the desdemanded of her (M xüi). In an interview with Barbara Kevles, Sexton describes her mental state at the onset of her writiag careec UntiI I was twenWei#t I had a kind of buried selfwho didn't know she oould do anything but make white sauce and diaper babies. 1 didn't know 1 had any mative depths. 1 was a victim of the American Dream, the bourgeois, middle-class drearn. AU 1 wanted was a liale piece of We, to be married, to have children. 1 thought the nightmares, the visions, the demons would go away if there was enough love to put them down. 1 was trying my damnedest to lead a conventional life, for that was how 1 was bmught up, and it was what my husband wanted of me. But one can't build liale white picket fences to keep nightmares out. The sucface cracked when 1 was about twentyeight. 1 had a psychotic break and tried to kill myself. (McClatchy 3-4) Psychotherapy pmvided the springboard hmwhich Anne Sexton was able to gain the strength to fuel a purpose and determination she had not yet known. She began to write poetry, resolute on developing her skills in order to articulate the painfbl experiences of her Me, ultimately, to examine her own identity but, primarily, to "help other patients" (Mxiii). The emergence, then, of a speeinc persona, "Anne Sexton-Poetln saw the begiMings of a praline and exciting writing career in which 'd of her arts converged ... on the mystery of identity" (McClatchy viii). Although this bmught Anne Sexton to new levels of personal fùlfïlment and freedom of expression, it did little ta consolidate the fdyunit. As far as Sexton's mother-in-law BilIie was concemed, there was no distinction between Anne Sextun7spsychic malaise and her poetry: "Anne was getting rewded for writing about an iUness which had bmught her fdy to its knees" (M374). Close inspection of heSenton's poetic canon identifies the family, both nuclear and extended, as nourishment for her art; as Diana Hume George so convincingly notes, the fdycame to symbolize for Sexton a Wmcosmic analogue of the social and psychic structure of her culturen (Oedipw 24). She bemoans traumatic childhood experiences with her parents, problematic relations with her two daughters, and a contrary dissatisfaction with her marriage. These provide the stimuli for many of her most confessional poems. At the end of 1957, there was, as Middlebmk notes, "a decisive change of identity." SextDn had stopped indicating her title when submitting poems for publication, but instead simply signed Anne Sexton (65). By the time Segton came to publish The Book of Folly in 1972 she had appmpriated the appellation '35s. hg." She had finally discovered authentic social presence" that held no label or presupposition (M40); she could move away hma perception of herself as a Me,daughter, and mother towards a redefinition of her de--that of writer and poet, which bmught with it a new type of hedom. As Sexton asserts: When writing you make a new reality" (M62). This hedom permitted the adoption of a more objective stance hm which Sextan could contemplate, more astutdy, her major relationships. Up until her divorce in 1973, Sexton remained nrmly anchored in the familial unit.
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