Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Anne Sexton's "Suicide Note" is a profound and harrowing exploration of the themes of death, despair, and the longing for escape. The poem, written in Sexton's characteristic confessional style, delves deeply into the psyche of a person who is teetering on the brink of self-destruction, offering a chillingly intimate glimpse into the thoughts and emotions that accompany such a decision.

The poem begins with an invocation of narcissism, referencing Antonin Artaud, a French playwright and poet known for his own struggles with mental illness. Sexton immediately establishes a connection between narcissism and survival, suggesting that her preoccupation with herself and her inner turmoil is not a sign of vanity but rather a matter of life and death. The reference to Artaud, who famously suffered from profound psychological torment, sets the tone for the poem, framing it as a reflection on the intense inner pain that drives the speaker towards suicide.

Throughout the poem, Sexton uses stark and vivid imagery to convey the speaker's sense of alienation and despair. The "worms talking to the mare's hoof in the field" and the "season of young girls dropping their blood" evoke the natural cycles of life and death, but in a way that feels detached and clinical, as if the speaker is observing these phenomena from a distance, disconnected from the world around her. This sense of detachment is further emphasized by the speaker's desire to "drop myself quickly into an old room," a metaphorical expression of her wish to retreat from life and its demands.

Sexton also grapples with the concept of being born again, a notion that she finds deeply troubling. The idea of being "born twice" at the age of thirteen, a time often associated with the onset of adolescence and the accompanying emotional turmoil, is presented as a kind of curse. The "boardinghouse, each year a bedroom, caught fire," serves as a metaphor for the destruction and instability that the speaker associates with her formative years. This image of fire recurs later in the poem, symbolizing both the consuming nature of her despair and the inevitability of her fate.

The speaker's contemplation of her own death is imbued with a sense of inevitability and resignation. She envisions herself sinking "with hundreds of others on a dumbwaiter into hell," portraying death as a descent into darkness rather than a release or escape. The metaphor of being a "light thing" that enters death "like someone's lost optical lens" underscores the speaker's sense of insignificance and the futility of her existence. Her life, once "half enlarged," now tilts "backward and forward," reflecting her loss of direction and purpose.

Sexton's use of religious imagery is particularly striking in this poem. The speaker recalls a time when her "hunger was for Jesus," a period of spiritual longing that has since been replaced by despair. The reference to Jesus riding "calmly into Jerusalem in search of death" is a powerful allusion to the biblical story of the Passion, but it is also a reflection of the speaker's own journey towards self-destruction. This parallel suggests that, like Jesus, the speaker views her death as inevitable, a preordained conclusion to her suffering.

The poem's conclusion is marked by a sense of finality and detachment. The speaker acknowledges that "everyone has a death, his own death, waiting for him," and she accepts this fate without resistance. The image of the "toy donkey" that has carried her "all these years" serves as a metaphor for the passive acceptance of her path, a journey that has always been leading to this moment. The final lines of the poem, with their references to guitars, snakes, and bats, emphasize the speaker's isolation and the indifference of the world to her suffering. The city, the natural world, and even the night itself will continue on, oblivious to her passing.

"Suicide Note" is a powerful and unsettling meditation on the darkness that can consume the human soul. Through her evocative imagery and candid exploration of the speaker's inner turmoil, Sexton offers a poignant and deeply personal reflection on the despair that drives one to contemplate the ultimate act of self-destruction. The poem stands as a testament to Sexton's ability to confront the most painful aspects of the human experience with unflinching honesty and raw emotional intensity.

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