Anne Sexton Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Anne Sexton - Research Paper Example The person responsible for Sexton picking up the pen is her psychiatrist Dr. Martin Orne. It was May 29, 1957 and at her second attempt at taking her own life when Dr. Orne came up to her and told her she has something to live for. Her poetry is something that people just like her may find emphatic. She was then 28 years old with two daughters when she was admitted to Glenside Hospital after another breakdown. It was barely a year since their doctor-patient relationship that lasted for a decade. Previously, Dr. Martha Brunner-Orne, Dr. Martin Orne’s mother was treating her. It was only because Orne left Boston for Philadelphia that their medical relationship stopped. Later, when Sexton died, her revered therapist even went so far as to condemn her two succeeding therapists. One was alleged to have had an unethical affair with Sexton while treating her while the second who forbade her to see Orne abruptly stopped treating her (Hughes, par.11-14). Her mental illness is so entwined with her poetry that despite reproach, Orne allowed biographer Diane Wood Middlebrook to listen to confidential tapes in Sexton’s psychotherapy sessions in 1991 (Hughes, par.6-10). Her personal demons are such an integral part of her writing that it cannot be dismissed as a focal point for a number of her works. â€Å"I checked out for the last time, on the first of May; graduate of the mental cases, with my analyst’s okay, my complete book of rhymes, my typewriter and my suitcases† (Sexton, â€Å"Double Image†). From one of her earlier works, â€Å"Double Image† carries a lot of ground and is forthright in her struggles with mental illness. It was also an account on how she got started with writing. Written as an open letter to her daughter, Joyce, Sexton winds back and forth between her childhood to her adult life to her motherhood. It was an account of the way she got started into poetry, determined to put