Self in 1958

One of the first things I decided to put in my portfolio is the assignment I had to do on Self in 1958, a critical thinking piece. This was a seminar, which was due on Friday, January 27, 2006. This poem is not a very easy read. To fully understand the poem, you have to read it more than once. The assignment was to read the poem, find similar and different words, phrases and meanings, and then write a paragraph on one of those. This was one of the hardest poems to understand which is why I picked it as my critical thinking piece. I think this assignment also showed how I understand the poetry that I read and my interpretation of it. “She doesn’t seem like she found any meaning in life. She doesn’t feel like a person, she feels controlled by someone, kind of like a robot, or a doll.” After reading the poem, you might have your own interpretation of it as well.

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What is reality?
I am a plaster doll; I pose
With eyes that cut open without landfall or nightfall
Upon some shellacked and grinning person,
Eyes that open, blue, steel, and close.
Am I approximately an I. Magnum transplant?
I have hair, black angel,
Black-angel-stuffing to comb,
Nylon legs, luminous arms
And some advertised clothes.

I live in a doll’s house
With four chairs,
A counterfeit table, a flat roof
And a big front door.
Many have come to such a small crossroad.
There is an iron bed,
(Life enlarges, life takes aim)
A cardboard floor,
Windows that flash open on someone’s city,
And little more.

Someone plays with me,
Plants me in the all-electric kitchen,
Is this what Mrs. Rombauer said?
Someone pretends with me—
I am walled in solid by their noise—
Or puts me upon their straight bed.
They think I am me!
Their warmth? Their warmth is not a friend!
They pry my mouth for their cups of gin
And their stale bread.

What is reality
To this synthetic doll
Who should smile, who should shift gears,
Should spring the doors open in a wholesome disorder,
And have no evidence of ruin or fears?
But I would cry,
Rooted into the wall that
Was once my mother,
If I could remember how
And if I had the tears.

The author Anne Sexton of Self in 1958 describes her self as a doll. She looks like a doll with her black hair, nylon legs, luminous arms, and the advertised clothes. She fells like a doll too. She feels like she is living in a dollhouse where someone plays with her in the all-electric kitchen. She doesn’t seem like she found any meaning in life. She doesn’t feel like a person, she feels controlled by someone, kind of like a robot, or a doll.