Most of us accept that the stories we were told as children were false, or at least romanticized. At some point, the illusion was shattered and Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and Cinderella became characters we remembered fondly. But while we recognize these figures and legends as illusions, we have retained many of the feelings contained in the stories, without questioning their application to adult life. Anne Sexton often uses these innocent, childlike images juxtaposed with cynical but more realistic situations to show that the lessons society teaches children, lessons that children retain as adults, are illusions that do not adequately illustrate the corrupt and violent world we live in actually. Sexton's poem Cinderella, about rags to riches stories, clearly follows this pattern. First, the speaker tells four stories: that of a plumber who wins the lottery, that of a nanny who marries her boss's son, that of a milkman who makes his fortune in real estate, and that of a cleaning lady who becomes rich after the bus he was on crashes. , and she collects the insurance. The progression of these same stories casts cynicism in the form of poetry. The speaker begins with the story of a lottery winner, which is something lucky and could be interpreted as the universe's help to a man struggling to care for the "twelve children." Then comes the nanny, who also has a romantic trip, although not as accidental as this lucky plumber, because she "captures the heart of the eldest son." The choice of the word “catch” could be seen simply as an idiomatic coincidence, or more likely an implication that the speaker feels that the nanny had some ulterior motive for love in her interactions with the child. After the nurse there is the milkman. The milkman still has a romantic... middle of paper... Ton's problem isn't with people on an individual level, but rather with society putting them in the situations they find themselves in. This is significant because it shows that Sexton's goal is to highlight society's flaws and lies rather than those of people. Often, the reader cannot help but feel a little disheartened after reading a collection of poems by Anne Sexton. Sexton herself was despondent about the prospect of life, killing herself at the age of 45 after years in and out of psychiatric facilities. His poems certainly take cynicism to the extreme, but they remain the kind of extreme valuable to the literary canon. His poetry leaves the reader wondering about the world around them, now able to see past stories and experiences in a new light. And while in Sexton's case this light may be a shadow, the new depth it adds highlights for us what we believe to be truly pure..