Analyzing Anne Sexton's Poem 'Her Kind'

"A woman like that is not a woman, quite,” admits the speaker in “Her Kind,” a short poem written by Anne Sexton, as the piece twists the mother’s and homemaker’s traditional actions into a midnight fairy tale, as they must become as one worms through the dark woods of a troubled mind. On the surface, the poem follows a self-proclaimed witch, who flies, dwells in the forest, and is even burned at the stake. However, the nature of the imagery used, and the couplet ending each stanza provide the initial hint at the figurative meaning of the piece. That in stanza two the speaker works with, “skillets, carvings, shelves, closets, silks…” and fixes suppers, rearranging what is out of order, all suggest the work of a housewife. The couplet ending each stanza makes it clear that

the descriptions are a comparison rather than a literal narrative. That the speaker defines herself as a creature of the night, someone not quite society's definition of a woman, and someone misunderstood, describes the married and motherly life of many women in Sexton’s 1960.

For some, the expectation to stay home, give up work, mind one’s husband, take care of children, and even just having children was so great that it overruled the wishes of such women, the social pressure to live a certain type of life tangible in everything from advertising to entertainment to law. The structure of the piece itself supports this idea: There are three stanzas, each seven lines, each with a repeating rhyme scheme (with only one discrepancy in the sixth line of the second stanza). Even the number of syllables only fluctuates slightly, clinging to a general number of nine, with the final couplet being eleven, then five syllables. The irregularities in the quantity of syllables, and the single break from the rhyme scheme among a biblically numbered work do conjure a speaker literally confined in the structure, with the “imperfections” perhaps the manifestation of her attempting to escape what has been imposed upon her, or her inability to fit into the role despite attempting

to. This is what drives the speaker into the woods at night - the forest is not an uncommon symbol for chaos, danger, confusion and the “other,” something apart and secret from society (think The Scarlett Letter, or Hansel and Gretel). The third stanza marks the turning point in the speaker’s mindset, however, as she bares her arms, shows herself, and declares herself, “not ashamed to die” even as she faces medieval torture devices like the wheel and “cleansing” fire. By using an even more specific reference to the treatment of “real” witches, and real women in history, she compares those burned for defying society's expectations in 1690 to those alienated for doing so in 1960.