I really enjoyed reading Anne Sexton’s poem “And One for My Dame.” I thought that it sent a sad, but beautiful message in a satisfying way. Her father seemed to be a great business man and he had a lot of passion for it. But as readers know, his job was consuming and that took his presence away from Sexton’s life and quality time spent with her. While reading the poem, I couldn’t help but wonder if her father was a selfish man who was driven by his ambitions caring more for his work than for his own daughter. Or, through his perspective, was he blinded by his success from Sexton’s true feelings. As Sexton wrote in line 11, her father was “the man who filled [her] plate” and I wondered if his mindset was that as long as he was successful, making money, and providing for his family, everyone would be happy as he was supposed to do all those things as the father of the household, when really everyone was not happy. His lack of attention, love, and presence in Sexton’s life is really evident in line 15 as she doesn’t even describe him as a father. She says he is “a peddler, a hawker, a merchant and an Indian chief;” everything but a father. Also, readers can notice that all these descriptions she uses are work related which just shows how he was so caught up in his business that that is what defined him in her eyes. I think Sexton really brings attention to the idea that money is not everything and cannot buy your happiness as she talks about her relationship with her father and his relationship with his work.
The transition as she starts to speak about her husband was very smooth and satisfying as I read it. By understanding how she felt lonely and upset by the lack of her father’s presence and by his drunken behavior as we are taken through her childhood with him, we can empathize with her. Fathers are very important figures in one’s life. They are supposed to proved unconditional love and there is a special bond between a father and daughter. Sexton has missed out on this type of love and attention from her father but now that she is married, she has the chance to create a special bond again with another important male figure in her life. Readers can now understand the panic and fear she feels as it is revealed that her husband is following in similar footsteps. She attempts to warn him saying, “[Y]our itinerary open, / its tolls ticking and greedy” (lines 46-47). Readers can also get a sense of the idea that becoming obsessed with working and money can lead to greed. She seems to be addressing her husband and we can understand this through the form of the poem. This poem is a confessional poem, so there is no separation between the speaker and the poet. Therefore, we know that when she says “my husband,” she is actually talking about her husband in real life rather than some arbitrary husband of some arbitrary speaker.
I also found it interest that she refers to herself as a “dame” when referring to how the father and husband are providing for their “dame,” or doing what they do for their “dame.” This term usually refers to a woman who is of equal ranks of a knight, and in this time period, that woman would be considered highly ranked, especially as a female. However, when you look at where a knight stands in terms of nobility, they are usually at the bottom. I think this irony perfectly describes how she feels she is being treated by her father and husband versus how they feel they are treating her. In their eyes they are doing all this work for her so that they can provide and make her happy; she is “highly ranked” from their perspective and they feel they are doing everything and more for her. However, from her perspective, she is ranked at the bottom of their domain, just as knights are ranked at the bottom of nobility. She feels she is treated poorly as she lacks their attention and love. Their passion for their work is ranked above her so she feels she is less important to them in her eyes.
The last thing I found interesting was how it is noted in the footnotes that this poem is supposed to be reference to “Baa Baa Black Sheep.” Sheep are typically white, so the idea of a sheep being black seems to represent some kind of bad omen. In this case, both the father and the husband sell wool. There seems to be a connection implying that their business and passion for selling wool has ruined her relationship with her father and has the potential to also ruin it with her husband so this could be the result of the bad omen.
