Critical Analysis Of The Addiction By Anne Sexton

A Critical Analysis of Anne Sexton’s “The Addict”

Addiction is a condition that results when a person ingests a substance or engages in an activity that can be pleasurable but the continued use or act of which becomes compulsive and interferes with ordinary life responsibilities. As for this, Anne Sexton’s poem “The Addict” informs the reader about her own personal struggle with depression as she becomes addicted to her pharmaceutical pills in the attempt of slow suicide. In fact, the reader may assume that Mrs. Sexton is troubled in a way that she abuses her pills that make her feel numb to the breach of death. Instead, this poem has a deeper meaning in a way that she portrays the addiction to be of marriage and war within her life. However, a closer analysis of the poem describes not only to be of addiction itself but the many trials of depression it took her to become addicted enough to kill her own life away.

Anne Sexton was born in

Newton, Massachusetts the youngest of three daughters to Ralph and Mary Harvey. Although, Anne had two older sisters she grew up a lonely child especially when her parents were never around due to partying and drinking for most nights. According to critic Marjorie Smelstor, it is a possibility that her alcoholic father would sexually abuse her causing her first conflict of mental instability. During her teenage years, she was sent off to boarding school and became an indifferent student since she would make poems for the yearbook. Anne then went off to Boston to finish school where she then met her future husband Alfred Sexton who was an extension of these abusive relationships. After conceiving two daughters, Sexton became increasingly disturbed by throwing fits of rage and depression that lead to abusing her kids and even attempting her first suicide. Matters soon got worse when she found out her only caregiver she thought of to be a parent, Anna Dingley, became ill and passed (McCann). For this, Sexton’s family then took response by trying to seek psychiatric help where she then met Martin Orne who encouraged her to write after her second suicidal attempt in 1957 as part of her therapy because of this she became the poet she is known to be till this day.
Considering this to be her rise of depression and insanity she then wrote poems about her everyday struggles within her thoughts and choice of death.

For example, Sexton states, “I try to kill myself in small amounts an innocuous occupation”(1952). Stating that she tries to escape from reality by overdosing on her pills not knowing it has become a habit to the point she feels immune to the feeling. Anne felt constantly aware of death and loss to be more positive in the way she describes her addiction to be a way of life for her (McCann). As stated, “I like them more than they like me, stubborn as hell they won’t let go, It’s kind of a marriage it’s kind of a war where I plant bombs inside of myself” (1952). Regarding this it becomes known to the reader that she is so addicted to the drugs that she replaces the pills as a human being that is so involved in her life in a way that she loves pushing herself to overdose but at the same time she hates that the pills are the only thing helping her to be sane in physical

appearance.
Throughout the struggles of her depression she still continues to reflect death as nothing but objects and games to where the reader is informed that she does not care for living nor does she care about her life around her due to the fact she thinks it is a ritual of her daily routine. According to the poem, it proves that she takes death as a joke by stating, “It’s a ceremony but like any other sport it’s full of rules” (1952-53). Implying that it is something one would do for fun not caring how dangerous it can affect a person. Although it is viewed how obsessed she is with the pills the poem slowly proves that Anne is not the same person she was in the beginning. For example, “Fee-fi-fo-fum—Now I’m borrowed now I’m numb” implying that she is already overdosing to the point where she is not physically nor mentally the same person she was from the start (1953). Considering this, she was a lonely drug-dependent woman who knew she would never become healthy and who accepted the permanent state of depression by isolating herself from friends and family (Smelstor).
In the end, Anne Sexton’s poem reflected on how critical her condition was by informing the readers of how difficult it is to deal with depression as she becomes addicted to her medication in exchange for her life. As her drug abuse grew stronger one can simply state she was at war with her life of depression and knew the only way to feel human again was to overdose so she can feel alive once more before reaching her death. As previously stated, the more the poem became clear in understanding the reader then can see that the poem portrays a deeper meaning of sexton’s addiction. Nonetheless, Sexton has been through many struggles in her life that lead to her trials of depression before it took her to become addicted enough to commit suicide.