Her Kind Gender Quotes

Sexton combines the utterly routine with the really, really weird in this line. Fixing supper is a pretty traditionally feminine occupation. Fixing dinner for worms and elves? Well, that's not exactly an everyday occurrence. Could this mean that our speaker is slightly more conventional than she seems to be? Or is she deliberately flouting conventional occupations?

"Nude arms" should be sexy, right? Well, not exactly. See, in this line, we get the sense that our speaker been forced to strip (her arms, at least) by the same folks who are planning to burn her at the stake. Forcing her speaker into a display of her body allows Sexton to underscore the ways that gender norms are reinforced by punishing people who dare to break them.