One of the most significant writers of 20th century America, Anne Sexton began writing as a therapist and joined Robert Lowell’s group.
In her works, Anne Sexton explored some myths and stereotypical relationships displaying with deft kills the complexities as well as simplicities between mothers and daughters, fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, gods and humans, men and women. She perceived and explored the paradoxes rooted in human behaviour.
Anne Sexton’s writing is usually grouped together with Confessional poets such as Sylvia Plath, John Berryman, W. D. Snodgrass and Robert Lowell himself. “Wanting to Die” and many other poems by Sexton are in the nature and manner of confessional poetry. Sexton’s poem “Wanting to Die” displays her attitude towards her suicidal impulses.
It was written on February 3, 1964. The poem was published in 1966 in her collection Live or Die, which bagged the Pulitzer Prize in 1967.
Table of Contents
Structure
“Wanting To Die” has no rhyming scheme and is composed of eleven stanzas with three lines each. The overall pattern results in a constricted and structured flow of words since each line averages about ten syllables. The lack of an exact end-rhyme sequence creates a sombre mood and tone in the poem which is also conversational.
Analysis
Stanza 1
The poem starts off with a depressing tone and sad facts that the poet cannot remember on most days. The act of not remembering transitions from a mundane impulse to a routine in the speaker’s mind. It’s almost as normal as walking with her clothes on. She just walks around in her clothing and almost inevitably an “unnamable lust returns”.
This unnamable lust as Sexton talks about is the urge to die. This is what she has often confessed in her letters. Sexton’s incongruous remark, “I am often being personal, but I’m not being personal about myself,” surfaces here.
Stanza 2
She confesses that she has “nothing against life” and goes on to mention the simple things that she acknowledges in life- the grass blade and the furniture placed under the sun. Her urge to die does not mean that she blames her life or does not enjoy its simple fleeting pleasures.
Stanza 3
To Sexton, suicides conveyed a “special language” and to bring out this idea she talks about how carpenters know exactly which tool they want to work with and never ask in fact-“why build”. This comparison is unusual and unexpected. It compares the art of killing oneself with a vocation and in both cases, there is no question of ‘why’.
Stanza 4
She states how twice she has simply declared herself possessed by the enemy- eaten him and taken his craft of magic. This declaration could be a literal affirmation of her suicidal nature. The enemy could be interpreted as the idea of death, which the speaker has “possessed” and “eaten” like a poison pill in order to destroy herself.
Stanza 5
The speaker retires into a passive mood in this stanza and states how she has rested-‘heavy and thoughtful’-warmer than oil or calm water. There is a tinge of discordance, of elements oil and water do not mix well. The poet is “heavy and thoughtful” with the thought of death. While deep in thought, she is “drooling at the mouth-hole.”
Stanza 6
This stanza presents a deplorable condition of the body with the cornea and “leftover urine gone”. The speaker admits suicide to have betrayed the body and to be no sacred place. It presents us with a filthy picture and a morbid vision of the future corpse.
Stanza 7
In a tone filled with desire, the poet compares the thought of suicide to an addictive drug that even children would look at and smile. The idea of the suicide as a “still-born” baby screams of the awful entrapment of a soul in a body that is wanting to die.
Stanza 8
The compares this suicide attempt with “life” which is on the brink of destruction. The poet personifies death, referring to it as a woman, ‘bruised’ as she calls it.
Stanza 9
Death waits for the poet year after year to “empty” her breath and frees her from imprisonment.
Stanza 10
Life when “balanced there” between life and death, reveals itself to be a kind of suffering that only suicides can recognize.
Stanza 11
Death leaves everything unsaid, pages of book carelessly left open and the phone is “off the hook”. Everything in the stanza screams of death and absence, symbolizing the end of life.
“Wanting To Die” implies the circularity of existence, it’s coarsens and harshness. Joann Deiudicibus in Excerpt From The Lives and Voices of Anne Sexton: A Biographical states –
“As we see from the suicide’s stillborn death to the thrust of life beneath the
tongue, and in a resuscitation of the body –death’s attempted release from imprisoning flesh– the disorganized scene of worldly things is left undone.”
Literary Technique
The entire poem is brought together by us of imageries, similes and metaphors in the absence of rhymes. The “unnamable lust” in the first stanza refers indirectly to death. Similarly, a simile has been used where the poet compares the desire to die with the vocation of carpentry.
The idea of the suicide as a “still-born” baby screams of the awful entrapment of a soul in a body that is wanting to die. The poet has also used personification to personify death as a woman.
FAQs
Why did Anne Sexton write ‘Wanting to Die’?
“Wanting to Die” and many other poems by Sexton are in the nature and manner of confessional poetry. Sexton’s poem “Wanting to Die” displays her attitude towards her suicidal impulses.
How does Sexton use personification in ‘Wanting to Die’?
The poet has also used personification to personify the idea of Death as a woman.
What kind of poetry is ‘wanting to die’?
It is confessional poetry with sombre moods of death and suicidal impulses. It is also conversational in its tone.
When was ‘wanting to die’ written?
It was written on February 3, 1964. The poem was published in 1966 in her collection Live or Die, which bagged the Pulitzer Prize in 1967.