Response to Anne Sexton's "The Starry Night"

An aggressive peace, the words I think best capture the essence of emotion of Anne Sexton in her poem Starry Night. She frequently talks about dying, and getting swallowed, boiled, drowned, and isolated from the town down below, all things that can point to major anger and depression. But at the same time, through the anger, she sees the beauty of the starry night, with ‘no belly or cry’, alive parts of nature, and stars shining bright. Can we see beauty through even the most complicated and depressing (for lack of a better word) things?

In The Starry Night, it seems as if Anne is acknowledging that she is upset. In a way, being aware of your feelings calms you, giving us a sense of security. When we are angry, some like to let it boil down and maybe have some alone-time, where being isolated isn’t such a problem. We can all be our worst enemies, and sometimes when we can just think freely we can come to terms with ourselves, instead of storming off in a rage because of our anger, trying to punch someone. Maybe Anne isn’t so much of a crazy suicidal, but just trying to relate her feelings to the things around her. I know when I am angry, I think about dying. Ok, well, maybe less dying, and more simply leaving where we are and who we are, and being an observer (possibly on a hill looking down at a town and up at the stars, like Van Gogh). Dying is a natural part of life, it just happens to be what most people believe to be the end of our cycle, end equalling yikes.

At the same time though, we learned that Anne committed suicide! Huh. Interesting. I must say, some parts of suicide are sort of creepily simple. You control who you are, so why not control how you go? I know suicide usually makes people shudder, but is it always wrong and plain awful? Yes yes, it’s complicated, but maybe through Anne’s repeated ‘This is how/I want to die’ she was trying to say their is a beauty to death. It can be so peaceful, and even though she actually committed suicide from carbon monoxide poisoning in a locked car, drunk, you have to give her applause for coming up with a death that many people would be happy to live through. We all just believe what we see in movies, but in truth, death doesn’t have to be so bad, and anger doesn’t have to be so violent.