Consuming with Societal Expectations

Consorting with Angels

I was tired of being a woman, 

tired of the spoons and the post, 

tired of my mouth and my breasts, 

tired of the cosmetics and the silks. 

There were still men who sat at my table, 

circled around the bowl I offered up. 

The bowl was filled with purple grapes 

and the flies hovered in for the scent 

and even my father came with his white bone. 

But I was tired of the gender things. 

Last night I had a dream 

and I said to it... 

'You are the answer. 

You will outlive my husband and my father.' 

In that dream there was a city made of chains 

where Joan was put to death in man's clothes 

and the nature of the angels went unexplained, 

no two made in the same species, 

one with a nose, one with an ear in its hand, 

one chewing a star and recording its orbit, 

each one like a poem obeying itself, 

performing God's functions, 

a people apart. 

'You are the answer, ' 

I said, and entered, 

lying down on the gates of the city. 

Then the chains were fastened around me 

and I lost my common gender and my final aspect. 

Adam was on the left of me 

and Eve was on the right of me, 

both thoroughly inconsistent with the world of reason. 

We wove our arms together 

and rode under the sun. 

I was not a woman anymore, 

not one thing or the other. 

O daughters of Jerusalem, 

the king has brought me into his chamber. 

I am black and I am beautiful. 

I've been opened and undressed. 

I have no arms or legs. 

I'm all one skin like a fish. 

I'm no more a woman 

than Christ was a man.

Anne Sexton 

<3 Hello. 

  Poems, videos and often songs represent a greater purpose than a broken heart, a new love, or a popular dance. As the poem shown above the author demonstrates society's expectations and how they go hand and hand with gender roles, in whatever context. 

 Sexton dehumanizes herself to become a distorted version of a female, one without gender.  She then continues to describe what a woman is through a series of symbols, which highlights the stereotypical roles and restrictions placed on a woman in her society, using images of everyday objects such as spoons and the post.  Males in this poem have predatory qualities as she does the chores "...they circle around the bowl I offered up", as they're attracted to her sexuality. Sexton uses this first stanza to depict her reality and the society she lived in and her boredom and resentment of it. This however changes in the following stanzas of the poem.

 The images of religion are used in this dream to create her new identity, without gender. Joan of arc is used as her symbol of female persecution and injustice. In the poem Sexton highlights that Joan of Arc, a martyr was put to death in man's clothes. The quote refers male clothing, suggesting that Joan herself was not considered a woman, because of her acts, and was stripped of female qualities. Sexton suggests strong women in history have been classified as almost masculine where in fact she believes they have no real gender, relating herself to them.

The metaphor is continued when she mentions how she is chained between the common genders of Adam and Eve, suggesting that her identity is neither of them in which she contradicts in the next stanza. As she uses her sexuality when she is brought into the king's chambers, as women are usually looked at to only use their seductive ways and aren't usually allowed to show this side of themselves but are depicted this way. 

  Although Sexton resumes to her idea in the first stanza of having no gender, her wish to become something else is evident in the repetition of solitary and combined symbols emphasized by the use of the angels in stanza two. The angels are unitary; independent of gender, each being different and individual. 

The author's target audience seemed to be mainly females as she described how she was tired of being a woman and the men circling her. Though this may apply to anyone, as society's expectations are only for those who approve of gender roles and don't see how one may be exhausted by this demanded behavior. Sexton was proclaiming her right to be genderless and whether she wished to wield her sexuality or not. 

 My reaction to is was astoundment, I have never read a piece of writing highly personal and confessional, since Anne Sexton was a poet around the 1960's it must have been very controversial to speak in this manner.  Personally, I was proud of the bravery she had to write a piece like this because of her view as a woman and towards gender roles. In order to proclaim how she is genderless is something that invoked the temperament of society because even in modern society not everyone agrees with these types of views. Sexton induces actual behavior of most people and why she would want to become a genderless being as she adduces evidence from biblical pieces and historical references. 

All love, Aya~