"Venus and the Ark" Question 3

   In the Old Testament of the Bible, God sends a flood to wipe out a corrupt humanity. God saves humanity however by having a man named Noah build an Ark to perverse earth and give humanity a second chance. By naming her poem "Venus and the Ark", Sexton is directly comparing her poem to the story set in the Bible. Sexton calls her story a "spoof" because it not only a parallels the Bible story, but also satires human nature. In Sexton's poem, humanity has once again been corrupted. She has two P.H.D's to gather animals, food and earth and place them in a balloon to restart life on Venus. The P.H.D's work is portrayed to be sloppy as Sexton uses words such as "almost", "stuffed", and others words. Sexton has no faith in humanity. The corruption and hatred of humanity is shown when countries destroy the earth with their best atomic bombs over a simple statement, "Venus is green". The only redemption humanity has rests on the two P.H.D's, who have landed on Venus. In a short amount of time the scientists fail and loose hope. With this, Sexton shows that in the end, humanity is doomed to fail.