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Essay / The use of syntactic, phonological and graphological devices in the poem Her Kind by Anne Sexton
Throughout history, different stereotypes and attitudes towards women have been created, which vary from culture to culture other. Most societies view women as objects that play a specific role. The role is to be an obedient housewife, giving birth to children, raising them and staying at home and preparing meals for her beloved husband. The one who does everything is a “perfect woman” and the one who rebels, does not meet social standards, is condemned and “burned alive”. Anne Sexton's poem "Her Kind" is a feminist poem that addresses the exalted negative stereotypes that women encounter on a daily basis. It attempts to capture the idea of the woman with multiple personalities, who does not like the restrictions and standards created around. The woman doesn't want to be what others want her to be, she just wants to be herself. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"? Get an original essay In this poem, Anne Sexton uses rich foreground material to reveal how a woman, through different constructs of a possessed witch, from housewife and adulterous woman, collides with dominant powers and reacts to the boundaries that present themselves. The poem is multi-layered with metaphors and symbols. The entire poem could be considered an extended metaphor; the speaker compares herself to a witch, here she is a metaphor for every woman who shares her feelings and position in life. Different images are drawn to describe the "witch", who is an outcast in standard society. A dark atmosphere is created through the words "possessed, haunting, dreaming of evil and twelve-fingered." However, the use of the oxymoron "dream evil" indicates that the "witch" is not as evil as society tries to imagine, because dreams are positive images unlike nightmares. The lines “your flames still bite my thigh/and my ribs crack where your wheels wind” symbolize the metaphor of the harsh attitude and oppression towards “different women”. The metaphor is emphasized by the onomatopoeia “crack of the ribs” which is used to create the impression of sensual immediacy, to make the reader feel somehow closer to this reality. Sexton also used repetition to incorporate readers into this poem, “I Have Been His Kind.” " is repeated in each stanza to create flow throughout the poem, defining the identity of the speaker in each stanza, that she is confident in who she is and who she has been. The repetition of words “I have”, “A woman like that is” creates a feeling of declaration or even mantra, with which we feel closer to the issue raised in the poem. Thanks to this we can understand that every woman,. in one form or another, is potentially the speaker's "kind" witch, her hunts, mystical creatures and other metaphorical images of paranormal elements are conveyed by the numbers three and seven, which in the magical world are considered sacred. The poet uses them to recall the abnormality in which a woman exists when she is different. The three stanzas of seven lines of a poem do not form any distinct term. It is not a sonnet, nor a villanelle. The lines of nine syllables and some of ten and eleven further distance the reader from conventions. Nevertheless, it has a tight rhyme and a loose rhythm. From lines like "we are out", "the black air", "far from the mind", "the hot caves", "where are your flames", we can see that the dominant trisyllables.