Anne Sexton’s poem “The Starry Night” is a narrative poem inspired by Vincent van Gogh’s “Starry Night” painting. The poem demonstrates a person's longing to live in a specific moment for all of eternity. This essay will focus on various elements that include but are not limited to the setting, the tone and the punctuation. When digesting this poem, the reader may feel that the narrator is depressed. The line, “Oh starry starry night! This is how I want to die” is repeated twice during the course of the poem. Despite the fact that the concept of death is brought to the reader's attention, the author’s intentions were not grim whatsoever. The reader must remember that death is not always a bad thing for some people. In this case, the narrator does not literally want to die, they are simply captivated by the beauty of the painting. When the author is saying that this is how the narrator wants to die, she is saying that the narrator wants to be in this moment for all of eternity.…show more content… It is safe to assume that they are in an art gallery or a museum when this narrative takes place. In the time frame this narrative was written, making a trip to the local museum was the only way to really view art like this. Despite the fact that this poem is about a person who is appreciating the painting, the imagery used does not display this concept. Instead, the author draws a picture of the painting in the mind’s eye rather than creating an image of the person who is narrating the poem. Most of the poem is made up of lines that describe the painting such as, “The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars”. The imagery that is used may confuse the reader, if the reader is concentrating on the painting they may lose sight of the concept as a
