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 //“The Fury of Overshoes” // // by Anne Sexton // // (1974) // // Seneca Haley // They sit in a row outside the kindergarten, black, red, brown, all with those brass buckles. Remember when you couldn’t buckle your own overshoe or tie your own shoe or cut your own meat and the tears running down like mud because you fell off your tricycle? Remember, big fish, when you couldn’t swim and simply slipped under like a stone frog? The world wasn’t yours. It belonged to the big people. Under your bed sat the wolf and he made a shadow when cars passed by at night. They made you give up your nightlight and your teddy and your thumb. Oh overshoes, don’t you remember me, pushing you up and down in the winter snow? Oh thumb, I want a drink, it is dark, where are the big people, when will I get there, taking giant steps all day, each day and thinking nothing of it?

//Way 1: First Impressions // My initial thought of the poem is that is it spoken from the view point of a teenager. I feel this teenage is looking back to simpler times of elementary school. Also looking ahead towards adulthood not wanting to get older and be the way the adults around him/her are. I also feel though that my first impression is shallow. I feel there is definitely more to this poem. I feel that it may take me a little bit to figure it out though. I feel this writing is very simple with a very deep meaning. It is almost child like in writing. //Way 2: Engaging with the Text // When reading this out loud I realized there is a lot of pausing in this poem. The lines are very broken. It makes the poem feel jerky, as if a lot of effort was used just to get the words out. It almost feels like the person talking is upset or sad. Also I see a lot of use of the word you/ your, as if she is trying to talk about something that was taken away. It’s seems like she keeps telling someone that it was yours once, but it got taken from you. Otherwise, she is trying to get across that certain things are hers and that she is not going to let anyone take them away from her. In away I feel that she is talking about memories. I think she wants to invoke our childhood memories and make us think about the way we were when we were growing up. Especially when she writes Under your bed sat the wolf and he made a shadow when cars passed by at night. When I was little I always thought there was something under my bed.

//Vertical Thinking: C //// lose Readings and Interpretations of the Text // // Vertical Comment 1: // //Form and Structure // I think this poem is an irregular ode. The stanzas change throughout the poem. This poem doesn’t rhyme. I can’t determine the meter of this poem. The lines change often and it makes it hard to describe what meter is used. After saying this, I feel that this poem is also free verse. I feel that the reason she wrote in this way is because this is similar to the way a child would write. A child doesn’t care about staying in the lines while coloring and wouldn’t care about how many words were in a line or the meter a poem was in. A child would write just to get their thoughts out and this is how Sexton wrote in this poem. At the end of the poem when she writes Oh overshoes, don’t you remember me, pushing you up and down in the winter snow shows that children are more into pretend. A pair of coots could never remember where they have been or that they were in snow. But to a child a pair of boots could have been their best friend and it could have shared lots of memories, it is a special experience to a child. But in the lines where are the big people, when will I get there, taking giant steps all day, each day and thinking nothing of it shows that adults do things that are in a different manner then children. Adults don’t care about how a pair of boots could feel, they know they can’t feel so they don’t worry about it. They don’t think about the places they are walking or making each step a special memory. Adults only think about the things that matter, like keeping things structured.

// Vertical ////Comment 2: Figurative Language // I think that the best line in this poem to show figurative language is the lines that say Remember, big fish, when you couldn’t swim and simply slipped under like a stone frog. In this the author is not really talking to a fish. She is intending for this to mean an adult or an older person, maybe even a teenager. Sexton is assuming that the person reading this poem is an adult and is using that to play on their memories of their childhood. She also is not really meaning when you couldn’t swim, it is more like when you could read or write or do any of the things that you learn in school when you are really young. I am not completely sure about the lines and simply slipped under like a stone frog. After rereading this, I think she is referring to the stone frog as if it was a real frog. Once again playing on the imagination of a child. In a child’s mind the stone frog could be something that they play with at some point. If the child were to pretend that this stone frog was real and threw it in water it would simply fall to the bottom. It also would show that many children feel they can do certain things when in reality they can’t. Some children feel they can become invisible and that is impossible. But this line is making an adult remember when they thought they could do these types of things, once again playing on memories.

// Vertical ////Comment 3: Setting // I feel that the setting is outside in front of a kindergarten classroom. Even though the author goes on to talk about other things, I feel that the person talking is still talking to someone outside of this classroom. The person talking is having a conversation outside of this building. I feel that Sexton is making you think about the place where most of your memories had happened. For most the best memories they had were playing outside, maybe even on a playground with other children. The lines because you fell off your tricylce would remind most adults of learing to ride a bike. It invoked my first memories of learning to ride a bike in California with my older cousin. I wanted to learn so bad, so she taught me. Of course, it was on a bike way to big for me and I think I feel into a bush about twenty times before I got the hang of it. After, thinking about different lines in the poem, the setting is many places and different ones for different people. Like the first lines They sit in a row outside the kindergarten, make me think of Washington Elementary in Oshkosh, WI, but to someone who didn’t go to Washington they would think about the elementary school in which they attended. This poem describes many different settings through out the whole thing, once again playing on the readers memories. // Vertical ////Comment 4: Point of View // I feel that this is written in second person. It uses you as if talking to someone. It is as if the person talking is holding a conversation, except the other person is not saying anything. Just like in line 5, when the author writes “ Remember when you couldn’t ,” it shows that someone is talking to someone else. Also, when the author writes The world wasn’t yours shows that the narrator is talking to someone else. If they weren’t and it was in first person then the narrator would have said The world wasn’t mine. If the poem was in third person it would have been written as The world wasn’t theirs.

// Vertical Comment 5: Complexity, Ambiguity or Difficulty // I think that the best line to describe complexity, ambiguity and difficulty is Remember, big fish, when you couldn’t swim and simply slipped under like a stone frog. These lines show all three virtues we are discussing. In this line the person talking is not literally talking to a fish. This is discribing someone who is now aged into adulthood. The way that these lines are complex and difficult is when the speaker says and simply slipped under like a stone frog? I feel that this once again is discribing a person or a child who can’t do something even though they may feel that they can. This is showing the mind frame of a child and this is the tyoe of thinking that Sexton wants her readers to be in. She wants them to be thinking about how their mind worked when they were children. By doing this it makes memories come flooding back and makes the poem more enjoyable. // Horizontal Thinking: Connecting the Text to It’s //// Context // // Way //// 8: Considering Canonicity // I know that at this point this text is not a canon. But I feel that it could be a canon in the future. This text can be related to anyone. Everyone was little at one point in their life. Also, this is a good poem to break down in a classroom. It leaves a lot to interpretation. The text could be dissected and discussed in great detail. This poem also makes people think of when they were growing up which could have different meanings for different people. This invokes people’s thoughts about their own childhood. The class could break this down in several different ways. The teacher could put groups together that have very similar memories and they could all share their experiences. Or the teacher could make the students think about what this poem says about adults. Do adults take the little things for granted? Are adults so wrapped up in work and bills to not pay attention to the things they are doing? Just like the end of the poem, when it says taking giant steps all day, each day and thinking nothing of it, does that show that all adults just rush through things and don’t pause to really think about what’s important or fun? Do adults just do what they have to to get throught he day and not take the time to enjoy life as it is?

[|Way 9: Biographical Context] I read a biography of Anne Sexton saying that she got married at a young age and that she was depressed and thought about suicide after her children were born and her parents died. I also read that when she was growing up that she may have been abused and that she abused her own children. [|In one biography] it said that towards the end of her marriage she had many other adult relationships and because of this her husband abused her. When her poetry became popular Sexton was at a point in her life that she needed a lot of therapy and medications. The therapy that she was going through encouraged her to write to release emotional problems she was having. She had the hardest time when one of her aunts that she was very close with died. Shortly, after writing this poem Sexton committed suicide. Some say that she was a confessional writer. If this is true then I feel that at this point in her life one of two things may have been going through her mind. Either she was trying to recall all the good memories she had when she was growing up and wanted others to think about the wonderful things they experienced as well. Or she was at an emotional low and could only think of the bad things that have happened to her. If this was the case then I feel that she is writing this poem in a darker light. She is reminding people of the times when they would cry, like falling off a bike or not being able to do things that they saw others do. Even the scary times, when things were hiding under their bed. She is reminding the reader that The world wasn’t yours. It belonged to the big people. This line shows that the adults ruled over the children and in her case they would abuse them when the children wouldn’t do the things that the rulers of this world wanted them to do. [|Way 10: Historical Context] I feel that with society in the 1970’s going through so many changes, this poem is trying to talk about life in a simpler way. The United States was just coming out of the 60’s and people were having problems trusting the government. People wanted to find meaning in everything and it became a lot for some people to handle. Art alone made people wonder if they really were looking at their own reality in the right way. Technology was growing at an amazing rate and people were able to see things that at one point were forbidden on television. With the war still going on and some many against it, people tended to feel overwhelmed, almost as if they had to do something about it themselves. I think Sexton is trying to take people back to a simpler time in this and remind people about how easy it was one people weren’t fighting and just acting innocent like children. I think at the end of the poem she I showing us that rushing into being an adult and dealing with all the stress could drive a person to drinking. It confuses people how they should act and what they should be doing with themselves, when the world around them is asking for so much.

// Way 11: Critical Context // I feel that if you look at looking at this poem in a cultural context would help the reader see the similarities between Anne Sexton’s life and the poem. She had a lot of emotional problems. This poem was written right before she committed suicide. I think this shows the reader the things that she was going through. I feel that this emphasized the turmoil that Sexton was dealing with. She had a lot of unsolved issues in her childhood and the only way to try to resolve them was through her writing. I feel that even though her poems were an outlet for her it still got to be too much and that is why she ended her life. I think in the end just like the end of this poem, she realized she didn’t want to become an adult like the ones she grew up with. She didn’t want to bring pain to others. This poem also shows that by her writing in second person. If the reader read this in a negative way they would see the bad things that Sexton had to go through herself as a child. But if the reader read this in a positive light they would more then likely think about wonderful things that happened to them when they were children. // Way 12: Theoretical Context // I think if you look at this poem in a psychoanalytical light you would see that Anne Sexton isn’t happy with her life. She talks about life being dark, scary and lonely. She uses a lot of words to describe this feeling she has. Some of these words are: “ dark ,” “ shadow ,” “ give up ,” “ tears ,” and “ where are ,” just to name a few. I feel this poem shows the low point in her life. This must have been a poem she wrote when she was depressed. She shows us that she is not happy with the life she is living and wishes things were different. She may also feel like she missed out on her childhood and that is why she is having so many problems getting past it. Sexton shows us how she wishes her childhood was. Like I said previously, if you read this in a negative light you will see all the terrible things she had to go through, but if you read it in a more positive light you will see how Sexton wishes her childhood was and wants to be for others. // Way 13: Unifying Interpretation // I think this poem is a glimpse of a person’s life. Anne Sexton showed her readers the things that she went through in her childhood that she could not bare to live with. She also made it possible for readers to think back on their own childhood, good or bad. A lot of this poem is a confession of the things that Sexton was keeping inside herself. I feel that this was her one last cry out for something better. She never got to find that happy balance better what had happened to her and truly getting past it and moving on with her life. Because of this she committed suicide. When she wrote this poem, she tried to think of herself in a child’s state of mind. She didn’t have anything rhyme. She didn’t follow any type of meter and she didn’t follow a strict rule for the stanzas. This was her way of acting as a child in her writing. This was an outlet for her to play the child she never was. She got to feel free in her writing and have nobody there to punish her for it. The poem refers to her not wanting to become an adult and be like the adults she had grown up with. In the end, she wanted readers to know what was troubling her, but at the same time help them think about their own childhood. This poem was filled with words to make the reader go back in time and remember their own childhood and all of the good and bad memories that could have helped shape their lives into what it is today. This poem is just that for Sexton, it reflects the things that created who she is, a great poet. My original assessment of this poem was a simple one. But after rereading it many times and finding out more things about Anne Sexton, I realized this poem was more complex then I had thought. I was originally stuck on the big fish line and couldn’t get past it. But when I found out more and more about Sexton I realized that there was more to this poem then just that line. There were several lines that played into her thoughts the day she had wrote this. Some many things finally tie together. I had trouble understanding a few things, like the line about the stone frog, I could not figure out what the significant was to that or why she wrote in free verse and irregular ode. After going through the semester more, things started to tie together and make more sense to me. I really enjoyed this poem and I hope that you enjoyed my interpretation on it. // Works Cited // __ Anne Sexton __. 2008. Answers.com. 10 Dec. 2008 . Brown, James S., and Scott Yarbrough. __A Practical Introduction to Literary Study__. New Jersey : Pearson Education, 2005. Gillis, Charles. __American Cultural History__. 1999. Kingwood College Library. 10 Dec. 2008 < http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade70.html >. __ Lit Web The Norton Introduction to Literature Website __. 2005. 10 Dec. 2008 . Wagner-Martin, Linda. __Anne Sexton's Life__. 2000. American Council of Learned Societies. 10 Dec. 2008 .