Anne Sexton’s poem "45 Mercy Street"

E757510

Anne Sexton’s poem "45 Mercy Street" is a confessional, introspective work in which the speaker obsessively searches for an elusive, possibly imaginary address that symbolizes a lost sense of home, identity, and emotional refuge.

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Anne Sexton’s poem "45 Mercy Street" canonical 1

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Statements (48)

Predicate Object
instanceOf literary work
poem
author Anne Sexton NERFINISHED
centralMotif search for an address
centralSymbol elusive address
centralTheme dislocation
emotional refuge
memory and loss
psychological fragmentation
search for home
search for identity
countryOfOrigin United States of America
surface form: United States
depicts alienation in a city environment
blurred boundary between memory and imagination
speaker’s obsessive search for an address
genre confessional poetry
hasImageryOf houses
night or dreamlike settings
streets
hasTitleElement street address
language English
literaryMovement Confessional poetry movement
literaryPeriod 20th-century American poetry
motif dreamlike searching
repetition of the address
urban landscape
narrativeVoice first-person speaker
protagonist unnamed female speaker
relatedTo Anne Sexton’s personal history
Sexton’s exploration of family and home
themes of mental illness in Sexton’s work
style confessional
introspective
subjectMatter inability to return to a stable home
inner psychological landscape
search for a possibly imaginary place
symbolizes emotional refuge
fractured identity
lost sense of home
psychic destination
unattainable safety
tone haunting
melancholic
obsessive
usesDevice dream logic
imagery
repetition
symbolism

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Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Mercy Street hasLyricalReference Anne Sexton’s poem "45 Mercy Street"