Eleanor's Polished Essay #14

Eleanor Hilton
Mr. Salsich
English 9
8th of April 2009

Courage:
Thinking about the poem by Anne Sexton

Courage is not something that you prepare for; courage is something that comes from deep inside you in a time of need. Whether it’s as dramatic as saving someone, or standing up to something you deem important, to do those things you need to find the courage from within yourself.

I believe a famous poet, Anne Sexton, also agrees with me on this point. She doesn’t just write about courage as if it’s a topic of simplicity, something that can be discussed. She writes about courage in the complicated, unfathomable (FAST) way that it truly is. I have also noticed a main theme in the poem, about life. Every paragraph is a new stage of life. There is birth and growing up, young adult when you can more easily make stupid decisions, adult when you realize that your life is speeding by, and when your on your death bed getting ready to walk out the door into the abyss. She’s almost saying that no matter the age, you can be courageous-no one is ever too young or too old. As a child your first step was an audacious (FAST) move that was ‘as awesome as an earthquake’ when your parents saw you off the floor, or when you noticed that you could move faster. As an adult, giving any sorrow ‘a back rub’ instead of just taking the easy option by letting it seep into every inch of your body, is a courageous choice. As a senior, ‘when death opens the back door’, going into the light, finding out what’s on the other side is bold-whether there is anything there or not. Anne Sexton knows what courage truly is and how it works. I wonder how many times she had to go through the very same thing she wrote about in her poem.

When I was younger at my old school, our year four class had some struggles with getting along. With only nine of us it was easy to get frustrated at each other for something simple, as we were all together for practically the whole week with classes, sports, mandatory clubs, and field and leadership trips. (Polysyndeton) This meant that we were all, whether intentionally or unintentionally, bullied by each other, sometimes there were even teachers not too far off in the distance, but our school not being so good, it was often ignored. (Antithesis) It was never at the stage where there was punching and real fighting, but sometimes it could be brutal-names can hurt and when you’re given the silent treatment, you can begin to feel quite lonely. (Loose) Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that this was going on the whole time. There were many weeks and often months when most of us were all perfectly happy. Infact, one of my friends and I were practically inseparable and we even looked like twins. However when something bad, which usually included a few choice words, was thrown my way or at one of my current friends, I had to sum up the courage to tell them to stop, and that it wasn’t nice, and sometimes it was extremely difficult for me to start talking to someone in a rage about something silly. I feel that this part of my past relates to Anne Sextons poem “Courage”. It says, “When they called you crybaby or poor […] and made you into an alien,” it’s just the same as what I had to go through a lot. If I had never found that courage from inside of me, the names may have gotten worse.

The poem “Courage” probably speaks to a lot of people who read it. I was one, and am thankful that she wrote it, as it’s a wonderful piece of writing that should be treasured. She almost seems to be saying, “Keep trying, keep pulling out your courage to help.”.