Cinderella By Anne Sexton Analysis

The poem “Cinderella” by Anne Sexton is about a girl who finds her prince charming. In this poem it is told in a different way then I remember it is a lot more gruesome and gory. Cinderella lives with her father, stepmother, and stepsisters and they treat her as a servant. She has to clean, cook, and do all of their chores. When she wishes to go to the ball the evil stepmother tries to load her down with chores, but Cinderella has a white dove that is her guardian angel. The poem then takes a different route than what I remember in the movie Cinderella. In the poem the ball lasts a total of three days, the slipper is golden, instead of a fairy godmother we are greeted with a white dove, and the stepsisters chop off pieces of their feet to try to fit into the slipper. This poem has a different approach than the Disney version, but still has the same moral that hardships can become great. This poem is also told by a speaker, has many literary devices, and the

This poem does not have a rhyme scheme because it does not have to, but it still expresses the emotion it is trying to convey. Imagery plays a big role in this art form and it is used quite a bit. In the poem it says, “...luscious sweet, ...sooty earth, and ...warm wings,” these are all forms of imagery. Similes come in along the way when it says, “...the white truck like an ambulance, ...Cinderella fit into the shoe like a love letter into its envelope, ...he began to feel like a shoe salesman, ...two hollow spots were left like soup spoons, and a ...happily ever after, like two dolls in a museum case….” Then the poet uses repetition when she says “that story,” and in the last stanza when she repeats herself saying, “...never bothered, ...never arguing, ...never telling, and ...never getting….” Sexton uses these literary devices to convey the meaning of her