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Anne Sexton Cinderella

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Anne Sexton Cinderella
In Anne Sexton's "Cinderella" one may ponder what the purpose and tone is. Anne Sexton uses a strong satiric and humorous undertone when poking fun at marriage. The use of dark humor adds life and body to the poem. Anne Sexton's placement of witty understatements is impeccable and allows the reader to imagine Anne Sexton's dark humorous laugh as they read the poem.

"You always read about.../...the nursemaid some luscious sweet from Denmark / who captures the oldest son's heart. / from Diapers to Dior. / That story." Satiric poetry like "Cinderella" often blends criticism with humor to convey a message that the author is trying to convey. Satire can be seen in "Cinderella" without even finishing the first stanza. In Anne Sexton's case she is
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/ It was a marriage market." In a line like this Sexton is able to use her poetic power to bring across her personal thoughts on arranged marriage as well as superficiality and "love at first sight". Sexton conveys that the fairy tale like meeting and love in a Cinderella or Romeo and Juliet setting is very cliché. After enticing the reader with her transformation of the evil stepmother, she ends the stanza with, "That's the way with stepmothers". Her sort of casual tone and understatements shows just how twisted of a mind she has and how she feels about similar …show more content…
Anne Sexton's use of satire and her satiric undertone can be seen between lines 80 and 85. Again Sexton casually slips in dark humor with no for-warning, "The eldest went into a room to try the slipper on / but her big toe got in the way / so she simply sliced it off and put on the slipper. / ...the blood pouring fourth. / that's the way with amputations." This dark humor mocks the stepsister's actions toward the prince and gives the reader a taste of Sexton's own insights on the matter about their greed and

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