Anne Sexton writes during a time when women, in a sense, wear
left hands. Their scissors are forged for someone else--a male with
the right hand; their doors open on the wrong side; their elbows
collide at the table. They are the awkward, the maladroit, the
sinister, and the unlucky. They work in the shadow of the descending
ruler, the patriarchal archetype, with their teeth clenched, their
knuckles tense in anticipation of the blow to traditional thought.
And with their other hands, left unguarded, they articulate their
first words; they learn to touch their new toes.
It is true, too, that the way a woman gets anywhere touches and shapes her. Sexton's Transformations of Rapunzel catalogs some of the ways in which women move each other or move with each other. This is not the poetry associated with the drama of falling in love with the handsome, heroic prince, with the defeat of the evil witch. Although Rapunzel is traditionally about falling in love with the prince, the focus in Sexton's version is not on romance. Instead, it is about the different facets of women's relationships with other women, facets women are now beginning to examine with a keen consciousness of their historical antecedents and the new ways in which these relationships work within the gender.
There is a calm and considered tone in this work, as smooth as the fish which appears often enough in this poetry to almost be viewed as a motif. This is work that compares to watercolor, the poem's flowing illustrations, showing in its lines ample proof of learning and craft, of language that is deft and to the point, and above all, of concerns not muddied by overstatement. Anne Sexton calls for a re-examination of the traditional fairy tale without its upheaval.
Much is asked of women's poetry in modern times. The feminist movement has been fueled by its poets who have posed the questions as women need to come to terms with in their own lives. Lesbian poetry, certainly, has been in the forefront of that which asks society to see with new eyes, to hear new voices. Poets have long functioned as consciences and seers, their language filling like small seedlings a terrain where nothing grew before. Plantings of all kinds have sprung from our poets, and we live in a time in which the gardens have asked more of the flowers than their beauty.
What a poet chooses to write about, though, cannot be the only thing that determines the value of the poem. The manner the poet employs also is the poem. When the manner and the matter can be spoken of as one, then the poetry can substantially reach the soul and mind interactively--a poetry that can show us how we are put together by how it is put together.
Sexton's version of Rapunzel begins with the contemporary observation and application of the "moral" of the fairy tale, then segues into a contemporary recasting of the fairy tale itself. Love is the essence of youth, but a fine line exists between love and, in modern terms, co-dependency. At the center of Sexton's version lies the tale of a young woman blossoming not into some prince's flower, but into a flower of independence, youth, and grace. And it is a struggle-- "church spires have turned to stumps" "politicians are dying," and "yellow roses [turn] to cinder"--even the most basic of social institutions, friendship, crumble in her sense of the larger world, while in her immediate world, Rapunzel must grapple with an overbearing, possessive Mother Gothel with lesbian tendencies. Not only does Mother Gothel demand that Rapunzel's "dress fall down her shoulder...so old breast may touch young breast", she classifies such a relationship as one of "a mentor and student". Mother Gothel is fully cognizant of her status as the elder woman, but she contrives this power in a desperate attempt to remain youthful--because "a woman who loves a woman is forever young". What Rapunzel must struggle to bloom through is essentially the protective bud of a surrogate mother's mid-life crisis.
Despite the fact that Mother Gothel believes she and Rapunzel are simply "two birds washing in the same mirror," their relationship is complex, multi-layered. It is isolated among "the cesspool...of weeds" under the surface of simple games of "mother-me-do" is the story of a corrupt, incestuous, lesbian relationship between "mentor" and innocent, unsuspecting "student". Mother Gothel strives to remain frozen in a state of youth; Rapunzel strives to crack her frozen state of childhood dependency. Anne Sexton transforms the dross of commonplace experience in the fairy tale (the cruel mother figure) into pure poetic gold--and vice versa, to shock her contemporary audience.
The ancient is mythologized into the modern: Sexton transforms Herder's concept of "naturpoesie" so it may become more accessible to the modern reader. "Naturpoesie," by original definition, dictates the perpetuation of an oral tradition through the spontaneous, unrefined, undistilled, and universal aspects of nature. By transcribing the oral tradition of the common people of a nation and the universal art which is able to transcend time and place, the life source of a nation is formed; the pot of history is cemented, and the seeds of growth are planted. What was once the individual will of the people becomes a national will of the country, and a unifying strength is created which serves as a propelling force into the future.
In Sexton's case, this means transplanting Rapunzel into the contemporary American world of Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor, two unmistakably midwest Michigan cities. The ultimate symbol of upheaval is the "[falling] of New York City", the cultural center of the U.S. Magic is defined in concrete terms-- that which is "more potent than penicillin"--and the leaves in the witch's garden are "as fluid as Isadora Duncan". Perhaps most importantly, however, is Rapunzel's status as a modern, feminist woman. Her relationship with the prince is one of the highly sexual juxtaposed with the religious: they "lay together upon yellowy threads,/ swimming through them,/ like minnows through kelp/ and they [sing] out benedictions like the Pope." Rapunzel may be "dazzled" by the prince's sexuality, but she retains control; she "pierces his heart" and restores his eyesight. Sexton focuses not on her marriage, though it is ultimately accomplished. Instead she focuses on Rapunzel's final blossoming into a rose, a highly sexual entity, independent of the stem which once fought to enclose her completely.
Rapunzel does not ride off into the sunset, clinging to her handsome prince. She simply outgrows the childish rituals to which Mother Gothel so desperately clings--mother-me-do, fish on Friday, tricycles. She triumphs in a world which decays all around her, and her triumph is described in terms of overcoming her relationship with Mother Gothel, not the prince. Sextonís concluding image is one of Mother Gothel "[shrinking] to the size of a pin," forever "[dreaming] of the yellow hair" as the "moonlight [sifts] into her mouth." It is not a violent image; it is a subtlety indicative of the complex relationships which exist between women.
By transforming stories into language and symbols of our time, Anne Sexton manages to offer the contemporary scholar of fairy tales understandable images for the surrounding world. The tale focuses on the psychological crises of living, from childhood dependence through adolescent trauma, adult frustrations through the presumable deathbed. By domesticating such terrors as incest and such uncharted feminine relationships as those shared between lesbians, Anne Sexton renders the particular pain of her life into universal truths. And in this, she succeeds in Herder's original ideal of unifying a peoples through the creation of the fairy tale.