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In the poem "To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Triumph", Anne Sexton alludes to the flight of Icarus and Daedalus and to "To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing" to convey a message to a friend. I think this poem was written to reassure a friend that what she did was the right thing. Perhaps a father figure of the friend advised her to do something and she defied him, making …

…fell back to the sea", therefore I think that she doesn't believe that the fact Icarus plunged to the sea is important. Many have used the process of allusion in the past to help convey a meaning of a poem. A popular example and choice of an allusion topic is the bible or past works of art and literature. Anne Sexton obviously chose allusion as her method of conveying her emotional message to her friend.