13. In "Iron Hans," Sexton lists a number of names: "Clifford [Beers], Vincent [Van Gogh], Friedrich [Nietzsche]" and "Zelda [Fitzgerald], Hannah [Green], Renee Vivien." Who are these people, and why does Sexton allude to them?
As stated in the lecture notes, Sexton battled with postpartum depression and went to Westwood Lodge, a neuropsychiatric hospital, for help more than once. Poetry was suggested to her and was what helped her live life for as long as she did. She alludes to these people because they all suffered similar mental instabilities.
Clifford Beers attempted suicide due to a bipolar disorder. He also was a founder of a mental hygiene movement as a former patient.
Vincent Van Gogh suffered from post traumatic stress disorder and committed suicide. His paintings were an expression of his inner struggles.
Friedrich Nietzsche was a philosopher who experienced a mental breakdown and never returned to full sanity.
Zelda Fitzgerald was a writer who suffered mental illness as well.
Hannah Green or Joanne Greenberg wrote I Never Promised You a Rose Garden to describe mental illness. She underwent psychoanalytic treatment.
Renee Vivien or Pauline Tarn was a lesbian poet who attempted suicide more than once. She grew more and more depressed about her failed relationship.
Good work, M'Alyssa! Why does she refer to them in this poem specifically? What point is Sexton trying to make regarding mental illness?
ReplyDeleteShe refers to them in this poem because this poem is about mental illness. She is trying to make the point that mental illness can be cured without intense treatments. It is mainly explained near the end in the stanza that reads:
ReplyDeleteWithout Thorazine
or benefit of psychotherapy
Iron Hans was transformed.
No need for Master Medical;
no need for electroshock-
merely bewitched all along.
Just as the frog who was a prince.
Just as the madman his simple boyhood.
When the poem reads:
Perhaps he was no more dangerous
than a hummingbird;
perhaps he was Christ's boy-child;
perhaps he was only bruised like an apple
but he appeared to them to be a lunatic.
The king placed him in a large iron cage
in the courtyard of his palace...
It shows that people who see others who are mentally ill take it to the extreme and call them lunes. The iron cage could be a symbol for a mental health institute. The cage did not help the wild man who may not have been a lunatic but simply a "bruised apple".