I confess: Vincent Van Gogh, confessional writer and confessional hero (Netherlands)

Vincent van Gogh wrote letters to his brother, Theo, which are confessional in nature. These letters not only serve as documentation of his life, but can also be viewed as a confessional text. Van Gogh's writing and his living exemplify confessional writing and confessional heroes. This study probes the possibility of defining his letters as a confessional text, as well as the possibility of defining van Gogh as a confessional hero.; This study establishes the correlation between van Gogh's letters and confessional literature by taking a look at key traits which are inherent to both. In comparing and drawing conclusions, the following texts were used to explore the following ideas: Saul Bellow's Herzog and suffering, Camus' The Stranger and alienation, Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf and the double, and Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea and the search for self. Additional background information on confessional writing is also given, as well as the relationship of van Gogh's life to the lives of the protagonists in the aforementioned novels. Van Gogh is also defined as an anti-hero. This study concludes that Vincent van Gogh is both a confessional writer and a confessional hero.