The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate how two poems are similar in theme, the first The Starry Night, by Anne Sexton (1961), and the second The Great Wave: Hokusai, by Donald Finkel. In both of these poems the imagery of nature is greatly relied upon by the poets to convey the theme that human beings are insignificant in comparison to the beauty, awe, and power of nature, but despite this insignificance they remain an integral part of nature overall.
In The Starry Night, Sexton prefaces her work with a quite from Vincent van Gogh, the tortured painter. The quote is extremely significant to SextonÆs poem, primarily because it expresses that despite the painterÆs inability to believe in eternal life, he finds solace and religion in the forces of nature. Despite his reluctance to utter the word religion, which conveys traditional connotations or organized religion, he informs us that his need for spirituality sends him out at night to paint the stars. In SextonÆs poem whose title plays off of one of van GoghÆs most famous paintings, Starry Night, we see that the author similarly disdains the isolation of human existence but has a vast appreciation for nature. Like van Gogh, nature appears to be all the religion and spirituality the speaker of the poem needs, ôThe night boils with eleven stars / Oh starry night! This is how / I want to dieö (Sexton 1961, 1).
Sexton (1961) uses simile to describe nature, as a ôblack-haired tree slips / up like a drowned woman into the hot skyö (1). The poet also uses personification to make nature come alive. The moon is personified, as its uses its ôorange irons / to push children, like a god from its eyeö (Sexton 1961, 1). The speaker appears to seek death with the comfort that she will become a part of the glorious nature she sees all around her. However, this glory does not extend to manmade creations as ôthe town does not existö (Sexton 1961, 1). Therefore, the spe...