Essay about Courage: Poetry and Courage

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Ramon Matos
Period 7
4/20/15
Courage is an honorable trait that not many people have. Anne Sexton is famous for her poetry and is known as the poet of pain. In her poem “Courage,” she finds that is not in grandiose gesture, but rather, “it’s in the small that we see it” (1). This poem gradually leads to an acceptance of death after a life of courageous moments. In Sexton’s poem, “Courage,” the theme of the poem is introduced in the opening line, metaphors are used to create the image of the theme. She writes, “The child’s first step, /as awesome as an earthquake” (2-3). The child’s first step represents someone’s first step towards reaching independence. She then writes,
“When they called you a crybaby /,
Or poor or fatty or crazy /,
And made you into an alien /,
You drank their acid /, And concealed it,” (8-12) sexton is comparing drinking acid to taking in what people say or do to someone, and concealing it to hiding ones emotions. Sexton is also a poet with social conscience, in the second stanza she attempts to capture the soldiers in the Vietnam War. She writes, “if you faced the death of bombs and bullets / you did not do it with a banner" (13-14) it’s as if she turning wounds into words. She is representing the way she feels about the war in which she is against. She writes, “If your buddy saved you And died himself in so doing, Then his courage was not courage It was love; love as simple as shaving soap.” (21-24)
Courageous acts may seem courageous, but they sometimes can be acts of love. She thinks that love is greater than courage, because it wouldn’t just take courage to save someone you know, especially if it’s on a deeper level. In her social conscience love

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