It is interesting to note the relationship between the works of Edvard Munch and Derek Mahon, both entitled Girls on the Bridge. I believe that Mahon’s poem could stand alone due to the fact that it tells a complete story; a story that can be visualized with relative ease. However, the poem is very much a true ekphrastic poem because it not only describes the scene in the painting, but Mahon and Munch seem to be telling the readers and viewers a very similar message. Both author and artist stress the bridge as a transitional tool that the girls use to enter a world and live a life much darker than their previous one. One of the more interesting differences between the two that I noted is the fact that Mahon makes no mention of one of the girls being turned around. He simply says “averted heads” when describing the girls. I took this girl to be of great significance to the painting but I guess Mahon did not feel the same way. Another example of the differentiating views of Munch and Mahon is the description of the girls. Munch’s girls are faceless which is probably meant to be unsettling to those who view the painting and create a sense of dismay. Mahon on the other hand describes the girls as laughing constantly. I enjoyed Mahon’s take because it added to the notion that the girls are very naïve and unaware what is truly happening to them. One last idea that I believe Munch and Mahon shared is that each work is supposed to be a representation of society as whole. I say this because neither the painting or throughout the poem are the girls given any sort of identity as to who they are.

In the poem, time appears to overshadow the seemingly peaceful present reflected in the painting. The poet takes advantage of the painting’s lack of detail in order to brandish his own backstory. He takes the innocent and calm features of the painting and makes it a commentary about the passage of time and the dangers of life. The poet’s allusion to Munch’s Scream complicates the ekphrasis even further. The allusion serves to remind the readers of Munch’s true mental state. Munch has always lived a troubled life and his best works are often gloomy and dark.

Derek Mahon’s poem “Girls on the Bridge” has a strong relationship with the painting which inspired it. I found the poem to deliver the same tone and theme as the painting, and in fact, expose those aspects of the painting more blatantly than if I were to look at Munch’s work independently.  Both artists create an eerily still, ominous mood. Mahon sets this tone bluntly in the second half of the poem.  He describes the scene with gloomy descriptions of “long shadows” and “dark waters.” The poet uses solemn metaphors to describe the girls: “Grave daughters/Of time”, and “Fair sister of the evening star.” Finally he declares their doomed fate with the lines “A day will dawn/When the bad dreams/You hardly know will scatter/The punctual increment of your lives.” Munch creates the same mood, but in a more subtle manner.  The unnerving stillness is manifested in the clear reflection of the house in the stagnant water, as well as the lack of active life. The artist creates an ominous tone with the setting sun and the road curving off the page, leading the viewer to wonder what lies at the end of the road. Mahon answers this question in the final two lines of his poem: “A mile from where you chatter,/Somebody screams…” The allusion to Munch’s “The Scream” is a connection that I would not have myself, though now I will never view this painting without imagining the iconic, screaming man, just out of view.

The poem creates many of the same responses the painting creates but in its own way.  Both feature mirror concepts, the painting in the water and the poem in certain lines that make you reflect on your own life.  Both draw your eyes centrally, the painting in the placement of the girls and the poem in the composition of the stanzas.  They each allow you to put yourself inside them as a character or focus of their meaning, the painting through the blurred anonymous face of the turned girl and the poem through its lines that make you reflect on your own life.  The language in the poem transitions from evening to night: “fair sisters of the evening star”, “night begins to fall”, “a day will dawn”, and the painting does that as well, being set in the evening but the twisting darker colors in the background of road indicating the coming of night.