Both her childhood and married life were wrought with alcoholism, abuse, and neglect.
In the fifth stanza, Sexton begins to tell the tale "Cinderella." Up until this point, she has given short examples of the "rags to riches" theme that is present in the tale. In this stanza, Sexton describes the stepsisters as "pretty enough /but with hearts like blackjacks." Throughout the poem, she seems to convey her feelings through the lives of the stepsisters. Sexton too, was a very beautiful woman, but her difficult life and resulting depression turned her heart into stone. At the end of the stanza, there is some indication of the inner peace that Sexton longed to have: "Whenever she wished for anything the dove/ would drop it like an egg upon the ground." This is a deviation from the Brothers Grimm tale. In both versions of the tale, Cinderella (Aschenputtel in the Brothers Grimm Version) planted a twig at her mother's grave and "watered" it with her tears. A dove arose from it, granting her wishes. By adding the lines about the wishes being granted so easily like an egg being dropped upon the ground, Sexton is implying that she wished her problems could be just as easily solved. She calls special attention to this by ending the stanza stating "The bird is important my dears, so head him.".
The Prince's ball is usually thought of as one of the most spectacular events in the tale. It is greatly romanticized as a lovely and romantic event. For Sexton, however, it is a "marriage market." This phrase, found in line forty-two, displays her feminist views about dating and relating. She sees the ball, as well as this big ball we call earth, as a huge "market" where men find mates based upon appearance and wealth instead of what is inside. These feelings can be expected from Sexton, whose looks attracted the wrong type of men, including her husband, who turned out to be an abusive alcoholic.