The Starry Night by Anne Sexton and Vincent Van Gogh Essay

The Starry Night by Anne sacristan and Vincent Van Gogh - Essay ExampleSextons intense tone mirrors the ire of train Goghs Starry Night. The painting depicts the fire that smoldered within van Gogh (Dietrich). The canvas is in turmoil. Sextons poem similarly throbs with deep agitation The sky is hot, The night boils, (4) the stars are alive and move the moon bulges (8) and gives birth to life. The poem echoes the paintings hallucinatory tone with its hot, dramatic, rocky voice. Sextons liberal use of verbs like boil, bulges, push, swallows,split and sucked demonstrate her inner turmoil. Except for the silence of the town, the poem depicts a world of turbulence. Sextons tone conveys the message that her starry night, like her inner life, is in a state of ferment. Sextons poem is a feast of reckonry. She matches the rich artistic production of van Goghs poem with the skilful use of figurative language. Sexton makes van Goghs vibrant night a greedy beast that great dragon (14) wh ich is to devour her. The thick, serpentine swirl of his brush becomes the old unseen serpent (10) which swallows the stars. Her words, in its orange irons (8), conjure an image of the moon as a captive who is forced to give birth to the stars. The most striking image is that of the lone, black tree silhouetted in the foreground of van Goghs painting, which Sexton metaphorically compares to a drowned woman (3). Just as van Goghs tree reaches out to the Heavens for help, Sexton depicts herself as a lost woman seeking solace in the skies.