Year 12 IB Extended Essays 2017

real her and the “blackness is murderous” on line 17, she states how she “migrates toward it”,

as if it were comforting. On line 10, the speaker expresses the depression, as “a good look that

[she] wears”, implying that she is at her most confident during her depressive periods. The

speaker continues to state, how she has a “blood clot” over her left breast, where the heart is, a

metaphor for her stopping the blood to her heart, stopping the feeling and turning herself off

from emotion.

Sexton’s second poem, Wanting to Die 5 (1964), is a direct insight into Anne Sexton’s

depression, and why she has wanted to end her own life many times prior. Anne lived a life of

seeming luxury, with a family, a husband and success. Despite this, Sexton felt an

overpowering sadness and introduces her problems to the reader suggesting she was not a

happy with her lifestyle, and that these things she possessed did not bring her happiness. In line

5-6, “I know well the grass blades you mention,/the furniture you have placed under the sun”,

Sexton establishes that she recognizes positivity in things around her, but she herself cannot

feel positive about them. The theme of negativity and lack of positive qualities in herself runs

throughout the poem. The opening line of the poem, “most days I cannot remember”,

disengages herself from real life, implying simply nothing is worthy of remembering, nothing

positive is happening to her and addressing what she seems to think is her lack of importance

in the world, and how she has no impact on anyone, “unmarked by that voyage” (line 3). An

“unnameable lust returns”, confused with death, reignites her where she feels alive only

thinking of death, but confuses it with lust for personal sake. Sexton doesn’t shy away from

the thought and theme of death, and even considers “suicides have a special language. / like

carpenters they want to know which tools./ They never ask why build.” Comparing herself to

a carpenter. Someone who just follows through without question, only considering the tools

(pills, weapons, etc.) to undergo the task of suicide, is symbolic of how she considers it a job