Travails and Triumphs of Being Women: Plath and Sexton as Confessional Poets

Abstract

The dissertation entitled “Travails and Triumphs of Being Women: Plath and Sexton as Confessional Poets” concerns the poetry by the confessional poets Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. Their poetry is about the rebellion against patriarchy in order to achieve freedom and identity of the women. Their confessional poems originate from their own wounds and the disheartening domestic experiences. They write poems about the feminist and psychoanalytical crises such as existential alienation, fragmented personality, and confusion about identities. Their poetry of pain allegorizes the story of suffering of all the women living in the 1950sand 60s.Their rebellion unveils the universal desire of rebellion of the entire women in the world. Their emphasis lies on the redefinition and the revisionary re-reading of the women and their facts. They strive for a world that is free of gender and racial discrimination. However, the poetic presentation of these poets differs in that Sylvia Plath appears furiously rebellious and overwhelmingly nihilistic whereas Anne Sexton turns out to be a conformist apostle as she affirms life. The former aggressively hurtles towards demolishing the patriarchal construction and creating a new feminine paradigm through the dark means of self-annihilation. But the latter revolts against the patriarchal constraints with the continuation of a passive and complacent life as her poetry is more life affirming. Sexton’s defiance is embedded with the compliance of gender. While Plath is more radical and sarcastic, Sexton is more submissive and docile. Yet howsoever is the ways of presentation, both confessional poets write poetry to subvert the patriarchal propensity and to create a new feminine realm full of justice, equality and freedom.