"Courage" presents the idea that survival and growth are only possible through bravery and resilience. This perspective effectively dismisses the belief that luck, genetics, or fate are the primary forces shaping a person's life. Sexton emphasizes this concept in the opening stanza, where her speaker portrays childhood as a period of isolation and despair. During this time, individuals are often alienated from family and friends due to their appearance or behavior. The speaker implies that enduring childhood requires suppressing responses to pain rather than expressing them. This notion is symbolically captured in the last two lines of the first stanza: "You drank their acid / and concealed it," and in the second stanza with the lines, "your courage was a small coal / that you kept swallowing." Sexton's poem echoes the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s assertion that "What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger." In every stanza, she presents a form of adversity and illustrates how people confront it by incorporating it into their being. By growing stronger, individuals can endure both physical and emotional pain, living their lives with grace and dignity. In the third stanza, where Sexton again underscores the transformative power of suffering, she describes how overcoming challenges changes people. This transformative power is embodied through imagery suggested by words like "transfusions," "wings," "spring," and "swords."

In literature, romanticism broadly highlights the individual's experience, focusing on the expression of personal emotion and feelings. Confessional poetry naturally aligns with romanticism, and Anne Sexton's work is no exception. Her poem "Courage" centers on the personal journey through life's challenges and victories, paying little attention to the individual's connection to society. When the poem does reference society, it does so in broad and symbolic ways, such as her depiction of war in the second stanza. The "you" in the poem simultaneously represents another facet of herself and the reader. Sexton universalizes her emotions, making her experiences emblematic of the human condition. Beyond using "you" to achieve this universality, the speaker includes words like "kinsman" in the third stanza to resonate with fellow sufferers, heroes, and heroines. The poem's structure, divided into life stages, further highlights personal rather than societal experiences.