"All My Pretty Ones" by Anne Sexton

All My Pretty Ones

By Anne Sexton 

Father, this year’s jinx rides us apart

where you followed our mother to her cold slumber

a second shock boiling its stone to your heart,

leaving me here to shuffle and disencumber

you from the residence you could not afford:

a gold key, your half of a woolen mill,

twenty suits from Dunne’s, an English Ford,

the love and legal verbiage of another will,

boxes of pictures of people I do not know.

I touch their cardboard faces. They must go.

But the eyes, as thick as wood in this album,

hold me. I stop here, where a small boy

waits in a ruffled dress for someone to come ...

for this soldier who holds his bugle like a toy

or for this velvet lady who cannot smile.

Is this your father’s father, this commodore

in a mailman suit? My father, time meanwhile

has made it unimportant who you are looking for.

I’ll never know what these faces are all about.

I lock them into their book and throw them out.

This is the yellow scrapbook that you began

the year I was born; as crackling now and wrinkly

as tobacco leaves: clippings where Hoover outran

the Democrats, wiggling his dry finger at me

and Prohibition; news where the Hindenburg went

down and recent years where you went flush

on war. This year, solvent but sick, you meant

to marry that pretty widow in a one-month rush.

But before you had that second chance, I cried

on your fat shoulder. Three days later you died.

These are the snapshots of marriage, stopped in places.

Side by side at the rail toward Nassau now;

here, with the winner’s cup at the speedboat races,

here, in tails at the Cotillion, you take a bow,

here, by our kennel of dogs with their pink eyes,

running like show-bred pigs in their chain-link pen;

here, at the horseshow where my sister wins a prize;

and here, standing like a duke among groups of men.

Now I fold you down, my drunkard, my navigator,

my first lost keeper, to love or look at later.

I hold a five-year diary that my mother kept

for three years, telling all she does not say

of your alcoholic tendency. You overslept,

she writes. My God, father, each Christmas Day

with your blood, will I drink down your glass

of wine? The diary of your hurly-burly years

goes to my shelf to wait for my age to pass.

Only in this hoarded span will love persevere.

Whether you are pretty or not, I outlive you,

bend down my strange face to yours and forgive you.

            As soon as I finished reading the last line of the poem, I let out a sound full of awe and wonder. The poem “All My Pretty Ones” by Anne Sexton is introspective and greatly emotional. The poem centers on Sexton’s feelings and thoughts toward her father’s death. What struck me the most in this poem was Sexton’s statement, “I outlive you, / bend down my strange face to yours and forgive you” (Line 57). In the beginning, Sexton depicts her feelings toward her father as indifferent and harsh. For instance, she indifferently states that her father’s valuable belongings “must go” and she will have to “throw them out” (Line 21). To others, it might seem insensitive for Sexton to do such things after her father died. However, I believe that Sexton acts in this manner because this is the only way she can express her love for her father. Her father in the poem is revealed in a negative light since he had an “alcoholic tendency” and attempted “to marry that pretty widow in a one-month rush” (Line 36). Furthermore, we can infer from his tendencies that he had an unstable life full of alcohol abuse and womanizing tendencies. Obviously, Sexton was negatively affected by her father’s misbehaviors but she chooses to not be spiteful and vengeful. Many people view an individual who indulges in bad habits as a one-dimensional person undeserving of morality and forgiveness. In other words, many believe that those people are immoral and malevolent. However, these individuals are actually three-dimensional individuals since there is always a reason behind their actions. Maybe Sexton’s dad indulged in these activities because he struggled with his identity or because of his wife’s death. Nevertheless, Sexton illustrates her understanding that her father was three dimensional by calling him “my drunkard, my navigator” (Line 47). This quote connotes a negative and positive meaning reaffirming the idea that her father was three-dimensional. The word “drunkard” depicts him negatively since it can be inferred that he was often drunk around his daughter. Yet the addition of “navigator” depicts him positively since he served as the guide and compass to her life. Thus, Sexton possesses mixed feelings toward her father because he constantly shifted from being a good father to a bad father. As a result, Sexton is confused about how she should feel towards her father’s death since he caused such pain and happiness. She therefore chooses to act in an indifferent manner to reveal her cautious love for her father. Sexton portrays her love by forgiving her father sins and deciding to let go of her anger and sadness. She is not ready to love her father at that time but she takes a step of forgiveness to become closer to that stage of appreciation and reminiscence. Also, she believes that time will heal her pains so she puts his belongings on the shelf to remember him as her one and only father. As Peter Ustinov once said, “Love is an act of endless forgiveness.”

The Inevitable Connection between Grendel and His Mother

                As I was reading Grendel, I became puzzled by the strange relationship between Grendel and his mother. Unlike normal mothers and sons, Grendel and his mother have a peculiar and maybe volatile relationship. Grendel describes his mother as a “life-bloated, baffled, long-suffering hag” which is extremely caustic and harsh (Gardener 11). Furthermore, he calls her “pitiful, foul, her smile a jagged white tear in the firelight: waste” which reveals the deepening hatred Grendel feels toward his mother (55). Grendel obviously disrespects his mother but on the contrary, his mother serves as his ultimate protector. Unbeknown to Grendel, Grendel is a cursed creature who is condemned by society. Therefore, Grendel’s mother attempts to protect Grendel by hiding him in a cave protected by fire snakes. She even loses her voice because of her guilt towards an “ancestral crime” (220). She laments over her son’s obvious curiosity about the world because she knows he will be rejected and ostracized by society. As a result, Grendel’s mother hopes to appease his curiosity and express her motherly love by “[smashing him] to her fat, limp breast as if to make [him] a part of her flesh again” (17).  By doing so, Grendel’s mother hopes to make Grendel codependent on her so he can never out in the harsh world. Like the time of her pregnancy, Grendel’s mother wishes to be united with him in body and heart. In my opinion, Grendel’s mother is a loving mother (though unconventional) who wishes to protect her son. She is like those mothers who protect their children so excessively that the children are not able to grasp reality. It also seems that her motherly love makes her humanistic which ultimately portrays her as a 3-dimensional character. For instance, she is constantly depicted as a violent monster by humans but she is actually a worried mom driven by guilt. In other words, she is an emotional being who becomes violent only to protect her son. Also, I noticed that Grendel’s mother might be a representation of Grendel and his future. We must recollect that Grendel’s mother is also cursed by society due to her connection with Cain. Therefore, she “dissects and ponders the dusty mechanical bits of her miserable life’s curse” to lament her fate (11). Grendel, too, later on laments his fate by asking the dark chasms/ cliff to seize him and take him to his death. Moreover, he engages in a 12 year battle with Hrothgar and his thanes because he accepts the fate people conceive of him. By readily accepting a fate that has great potential to be changed, we can see that Grendel has become tired and pessimistic towards life. Grendel, who was a curious and enthusiastic child, has now lost his tireless spirit and becomes a “long-suffering hag” like his mother (11). Grendel and his mother both end up as solemn and hopeless individuals who view life as meaningless.  Since Grendel falls into the fate of his mother, he will most likely unite with his mother since he now understands her.

Prufrock and Wing

 

The poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot centers on Prufrock who is confused and fearful towards life. Prufrock depicts himself as a man with low self-esteem by describing himself as a bug and crab. A bug is typically associated with negative aspects since it is considered a dirty pest. Therefore, Prufrock pictures himself as a dirty bug and a crab that moves around in a clumsy and awkward manner. Also, he is constantly questioning himself by stating “Do I dare/ disturb the universe?” (Lines 45-46) His constant questioning indicates his belief that his actions will be scrutinized by society which deepens his sense of doubt. He even states “And I have known the eyes already, known them all/The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase.” (Lines 55-56) Thus, we can infer that society’s prejudice has shaped Prufrock’s way of thinking making him a rather shallow character. Society most likely ostracized him for his unattractive appearance and nervous demeanor which he ironically creates or intensifies. Therefore, Prufrock is unable to become an assertive man who knows what he is going to do with his life. His inability to overcome society’s prejudice strongly alludes to the residents of Winesburg Ohio. The residents are all haunted by this a single truth that they live by. Prufrock as well lives by one truth identifying him as a grotesque. He lives by the truth that people will always judge him as a meaningless, old man. As a result, Prufrock wastes his whole life obsessing over this one truth which drives him to isolation and hell. One character from Winesburg Ohio who strongly relates to Prufrock is Wing Baddlebaum. Wing like Prufrock is diffident and constantly struggles with society’s prejudice. Yet, Wing suffers a more painful experience with society than Prufrock’s. His dream of “[expressing] his love of man” through teaching schoolboys was cruelly snatched away from him by means of violence. (9) Consequently, he becomes unsure of his life since society is against his cherished ideas and dreams. (One difference to point out between Prufrock and Wing is that Prufrock does not possess any definite dreams.) Wing then expresses his confusion towards life by his hands which compares with Prufrock’s fragmented dreams. Both of these individuals are unsure about what they did wrong and choose to blame themselves. For Wing, he believes that his “hands must be to blame” while Prufrock believes it is the yellow fog which represents his soul. (9) In reality, society’s eagerness to ostracize and blame others is the cause to their confusion. I believe that Eliot and Anderson employed these characters to illustrate that society takes advantage of those who are emotionally vulnerable. When society catches a glimpse of naive vulnerability, it is eager to manipulate it to justify their cruel acts. This is especially a prevalent theme in our society. For instance, the Salem Witch Trials were caused by society’s eagerness to blame a certain group to absolve their inner sins. Lastly, Hitler’s persecution against Jews was his justification for punishing those who supposedly “wronged” him.  Therefore, Anderson and Eliot are prudently cautioning readers of repeated misdeeds that often go unnoticed.