Name: Rheanne L.

Pasco Date of Submission: March 21, 2024

The Melancholic Hymn of Life: An Analysis of The Starry Night

“The writing actually puts things back into place. I mean, things are more chaotic, and if I can
write a poem, I come into order again, and the world is again a little more sensible, and real.
I’m more in touch with things.” — Anne Sexton

In life, it is unavoidable to have a phase where we get lost on our track and forget
how to get back on the path that we have taken, where peace and happiness envelopes our
small world instead of dead silence and dark pitch wallpapers surrounding every corner of
the room, stealing away the small hope we have stored for ourselves. Yes, we are talking
about depression, how one could feel, experience, and have the courage to handle this
colossal monster we have hidden for years from ourselves. One can experience the worst
downfall out of this illness, driving them to think that death is a lovely idea not as an escape
but embracing it as a deep pleasure in leaving the individual self behind to become part of
something bigger. The Starry Night of Anne Sexton showed this kind of ideology about
death, precisely correlating it to her life considering Sexton was one of the “confessional”
poets and someone who had a first-hand experience of depression with multiple suicide
attempts. Her works are also known to have themes centralized on madness, suicide, issues
of female identity, etc. Hence, it creates a significant impact on those people who experience
emotional illness or depression. Henceforth, as we delve deeper into her piece, we will
unravel other profound meanings that her work might contain apart from being related to Van
Gogh’s painting The Starry Night. At this point, we will make an in-depth analysis focusing
on Anne Sexton’s life and how it correlates to her poem.

The poem starts in a gloomy atmosphere, telling us that “the town does not exist.”
The speaker lost hope, knowing that the town she loved and admired never existed in the
first place, and the people were nowhere to be seen, as if they had left her all alone in that
place. If we match it to Sexton’s timeline, this was the time when she had a divorce from her
husband, Alfred Sexton, commonly called “Kanoy”. In addition, if we recall Anne Sexton’s
progress in her treatment, she was far from harm when her doctor stopped treating her and
left the town, confident that Sexton was getting better and may live her life like any other
individual. Hence, despite his high expectations, Dr. Orne received the news unpleasantly,

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finding out that Anne Sexton unalived herself due to carbon monoxide inhalation. Going back
to her poem, the author perfectly describes a woman who is drowning “into the hot sky.” it
could mean that her burning desire to slip out of her individual self is getting stronger, giving
hints to her readers about her death through her work. To support this claim, this excerpt will
prove it: “except where one black-haired tree slips up like a drowned woman into the
hot sky.” The black-haired tree she has mentioned may represent her love in writing, as it
has the same color as ink and her passion on writing did not waver even if she was in the
middle of her battle on staying alive or giving in to her reckless desire.

Furthermore, in the last three lines of the first stanza, the author clearly indicates how
she wants to die in peace and silence, constantly wishing upon the stars in the night sky. To
support this claim, this passage will prove it: “The town is silent. The night boils with
eleven stars. Oh starry starry night! This is how I want to die.” Evident in her tone of
how she desperately wants to succumb to death and become part of the bigger aliveness of
the universe, as she wants to achieve more than just the awards she has gained through her
writing. If we also take notice, the eleven stars that she has mentioned in the poem could
possibly be her eleven works (To Bedlam and Part Way Back (1960), All my Pretty Ones
(1962), Live or Die (1966), Love Poems (1969), Mercy Street (1969). Transformations
(1972), The Death Notebooks (1974), The Awful Rowing toward God (1975), 45 Mercy
Street (1976), Words for Dr. Y: Uncollected Poems with Three Stories (1978) and The
Complete Poems: Anne Sexton (1981)) that got her recognized by the public and received
multiple awards as well as opportunities. Nevertheless, her passion for writing may have led
her to something greater. However, the turmoil inside her is still there, creating a deafening
silence whenever she is alone. Anne Sexton may have enjoyed the fame and attention that
even her daughter, Joyce Ladd Sexton, stated that her mother was like “wallpaper” where
she plastered herself all over the walls (media). However, it was not enough for her
satisfaction.

Moreover, the poem’s second stanza is more likely a reminiscing moment when
everything she touches feels warm and lively. It is a throwback to when she started writing
poems as her psychiatrist had advised. The frozen world became alive again, making
everything more sensible and real. Her inspiration arose from the ashes like a phoenix ready
to conquer and help those who share the same wound as hers. This particular excerpt can
prove this claim: “It moves. They are all alive. Even the moon bulges in its orange irons
to push children, like a god, from its eye.” Anne Sexton used the moon to symbolize
returning to season, indicating she is slowly back on track and letting herself be alive again,
grasping the idea of hope and life. However, the following line is a slap of reality to Sexton,
whereas her husband is nowhere to be seen at her side anymore after the divorce, and the

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only person who understood her, Dr. Orne, her psychiatrist, also left her behind. The igniting
fire within her suddenly died, as if someone threw a bucket of cold water, once she felt the
reality again. Anne Sexton may have been a star in her time, but eventually, she burned
herself by embracing it too much. This passage proves this claim: “The old unseen serpent
swallows up the stars. Oh starry starry night! This is how I want to die:” By
emphasizing the old unseen serpent here means that her death is near, it is coming, and no
one can do nor stop anything about it from happening. The serpent is a symbolization of
death or danger; hence, if we carefully read what the author has written, she clearly states it
as old and unseen, letting us know that this sudden thought of death is not new nor was
sudden because we all knew that Anne Sexton has multiple suicide attempts already.
However, the point is that no one saw it coming after assuming that the poet was getting
better after finding her love for writing, not knowing that once a person experienced being in
the dark, pitch cold, endless space, it will always remain in them like a hidden beast chained
inside of their head, waiting for something to trigger their host and break the loose chain,
creating a havoc.

Lastly, the third stanza gives the readers a metaphorical visualization of her mental
illness. As per what has been previously mentioned, depression can become a beast that no
one except the host can control. Whether they let themselves slip and be devoured by the
void, slowly eating their entirety or holding on tight to that tiny light that we call hope. This
claim is evident in the excerpt: “into that rushing beast of the night, sucked up by that
great dragon, to split from my life with no flag, no belly, no cry.” In this passage, Anne
Sexton wants to have her death without causing any commotion or going under hideous
pain. It is also evident that the poet has planned her death all along to the point of condoning
the “fate” she has written for herself and leaving some pieces as evidence of her plan. In her
perspective, Sexton did not give in to her illness or the idea of unaliving herself, nor raise the
white flag and cry for her withering life. For Anne Sexton, it was just another sacrifice she
needed to make in order to become something greater, a part of the universe.

Anne Sexton’s The Starry Night is just one of her pieces that talks about death and,
at the same time, gives a glimpse of her life. No one knows what kind of battle she was
having while writing this masterpiece, leading us to an assumption that maybe she wrote the
poem in response to Van Gogh’s The Starry Night and shared her sentiments with a touch of
her own experience. Nonetheless, this poem lets us know the partial of her life, unveiling the
untold stories of Anne Sexton as a wife, a writer, and a person who’s struggling with mental
illness. Anne brought us to the time when she had her worst downfall, her breakdowns, and
the moment she grasped the idea of being alive again, believing that she still had a chance
to feel the warmth that she had lost long ago before it was stolen away from her. Henceforth,

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this piece is just a tiny fragment from her life that she has unveiled to us, which is far better
or more ideal than the news articles we have read about her. Ultimately, we are the beholder
of our fate, so we might as well be responsible for it.

“No one else can save us from the battle that we have created against ourselves.”

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REFERENCE

Anne Sexton - New World Encyclopedia. (n.d.).

Guerin, W. L., Labor, E., Morgane, L., Reesman, J. C., Willingham, J. R. (2004, December
30). A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature (5th Edition). Oxford University
Press.

Poetry Foundation. (1981). The Starry Night by Anne Sexton | Poetry Foundation.
[Link]

Poetry Foundation. (n.d.). Anne Sexton | Poetry Foundation.

Stanley, A. (1991, July 15). Poet told all; therapist provides the record. The New York Times.
[Link]
[Link]

The Starry Night Poem summary and analysis | LitCharts. (n.d.). LitCharts.
[Link]
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