Christianity and the Bibleappears in The Complete Poems

Sexton repeatedly employs Christian imagery, Christian sacrament, and the character of Christ himself throughout her poems. She often revises stories from the New Testament to make a statement and makes frequent use of the crucifixion and the character of the Virgin Mary. The entirety of The Awful Rowing Toward God is a religious and existential struggle, and Sexton cannot come to terms with whether the spiritual force she believes in is the God of Christianity. The author also makes references to the creation story of Genesis and the old testament story of Jonah, and she freely adapts biblical psalms into long poems.

Madnessappears in The Complete Poems

Every single book of Sexton's contains an element of mental illness, whether explicit or implicit. This is no surprise, given that her own condition is the thing which inspired her to write. Sexton's...