"Briar Rose", by Anne Sexton - Analysis

Anne Sexton completely altered the fairy tale, Briar Rose. The original tale was a straight forward story that can lead the reader to come up with a moral. It was one that also had a happy ending. When Anne Sexton tells us her version of Briar Rose, she immediately begins by giving the reader a view of what Briar Rose's sleep is like. She tells us of how Briar Rose feels, and gives the reader …

…and may have limited her lifestyle as he was "circling the abyss like a shark, my father thick upon me" (lines 155-156). He also may have been an alcoholic. She also shows how once Briar Rose had truly died once she was fifteen, even though she was truly just put into a 100 year sleep. Her life of fear and insomnia was now nearly a reincarnation, or a "life after death" (line 161), of her terrible existence.