Anne Sexton and Alfred Hitchcock

Briar Rose and Blood in the Shower

Introduction to Both Texts

Sexton's Sleeping Beauty goes from an initial anti-feminist slumber of childhood but grows to a later, mature feminist awakening. Hitchcock's Marion Crane goes from an initial feminist empowerment and sexual awakening to anti-feminist slumber and death as the film "Psycho" is more interested in the masculine conflict and journey of the self.

Both "Briar Rose: Sleeping Beauty" by Anne Sexton and Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film "Psycho" were constructed during relatively similar times in American history. Yet in terms of their theoretical construction in regards to feminism, these two works of art seem to come from completely different eras. The country or time of Sexton's imagination takes the myth of Briar Rose, the name of Sleeping Beauty and creates an articulation of initial subjugated childhood female silence that must be resolved through active female empowerment...
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