What is the author's style in Transformations by Anne Sexton?

The point of view used in Transformations by Anne Sexton varies from story to story. The majority of the stories are in third person omniscient, giving the reader an overall picture of the story as well as the motives of the characters. In others, the majority of the text is in third person omniscient but Sexton interjects a narrative style or comment that is written in the first person. In a few of the poems, Sexton writes in first person.

The settings used in Transformations by Anne Sexton vary depending on the story. However, there are no concrete settings in terms of places one would look on a map. The settings used in the timeless fairy tales are abstract, allowing them to relate to nearly every culture.

The book, a work of prose, is broken down into seventeen stories. The shortest story is two pages in length; the longest story is nine pages in length. The average length of the stories is five pages.

Each story is given its own chapter. The structure of the text in each story varies dependent on the length of the tale. None of the stories bear any of the traditional formats of conventional poetry, but rather are written in a prose style that mirrors the short story, with appropriately placed paragraph breaks.

Interspersed throughout the text are pen and ink drawings representative of the text. Most of the drawings are juxtapositions of what the reader would expect to see, often more disturbing or grotesque rather than pleasing or pictures that might be more reminiscent of a fairy tale. However, given Sexton's penchant for examining the darker side of life, the drawings make sense. While most of the drawings accompany the text, there are a few that are given a full page.