A Poison Tree by William Blake (1794)

‘A Poison Tree’ by William Blake was written in 1794. It tells the story of a boy who gets really angry with his enemy, so he gets revenge. So a seed grows in him which turns into an apple.

The enemy eats this poisonous apple and dies. In “A Poison Tree,” by William Blake is a metaphor explains a truth of human nature. This poem teaches how anger can be maxed out by goodwill to become a deadly poison. The opening stanza sets up everything for the poem, from the ending of anger with the “friend,” to the continuing anger with the “foe. Blake startles the reader with the clarity of the poem, and with metaphors that can apply to many instances of life. Blake also uses several forms of figurative language. He works with a AABB rhyme scheme to keep his poem going on.

These ideals let him to better express himself. The personification in “A Poison Tree” is both as a means by which the poem's metaphors are revealed, supported, and as a way for Blake to show the greater illustration of the wrath.The wrath the speaker feels is not directly personified as a tree, but as something that grows slowly and bears fruit. In the opening stanza the speaker states, “My wrath did grow. ” The speaker later describes the living nature of the wrath as one which, “grew both day and night,” and, “bore an apple bright. ”This comparison by personification of wrath to a tree illustrates the speaker's idea that, like the slow and steady growth of a tree, anger and wrath gradually come up and form just as mighty and deadly as a poisoned tree.Now the extended metaphors in the first line “I was angry with my friend” the speaker explains that he had had a disagreement with “his friend,” and he had felt anger toward this friend, but he told his friend about his feelings and that ended the negative attitude toward the friend.

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But then he had a disagreement with another person who was not his friend. As a matter of fact, this person was his heart discussion. “Foe,” his enemy. No doubt, because he and his foe were not close enough to have a heart-to-the speaker did not tell his enemy of his anger.Because he did not talk out his wrath with the enemy, the “wrath did grow. ” In the second line” And I watered it in fears” the speaker tries to elucidate how his wrath toward the enemy grew. he watered it with “fears” and “tears,” he covered it up in “smiles” and “wile “.

In the third line says how consumed the speaker became with his growing hatred of his foe. The speaker dramatizes his anger by metaphorically growing it into a poison tree that sprouts a bright, shiny poison apple. His foe sees this apple and knows that it belongs to the speaker although; the foe does not realize that the apple is poison.Also in line Four which is “And into my garden stole” Finally, the foe steals into the speaker’s garden, apparently eats the poison apple, and in the morning, the speaker discovers the foe dead beneath his tree. The speaker is glad to find the foe dead. In the poem, Blake uses “A Poison Tree,” to point out the lack of self control and restraint in society. The position of friend and foe in the first stanza helps go back to the theme.

Through his careful metaphors, interesting choices of symbols, and descriptive imagery, William Blake explores the nature of human anger, hatred, and wrath.The poison tree represents the repression of anger. When humans bottle up their anger inside, it tends to build and grow and eventually explode. One of the reasons why I like this poem was because there was something about it that I could relate to. I could relate it to certain relationships that I had had in the past with friends and foes. There was a time last year where I got really angry at a few close friends of mine but by the end of the day I could forgive them because that’s what you do u forgive and forget.This poem is a good revenge poem because, in it, a man seeks revenge on a former friend of his that has now become his foe.

The person that is betrayed is almost certainly a man because men are more prone to using violence and physical to solve their problems than women. Many people might think that the last stanza of Blake poem is telling the audience that the speaker has murdered his foe and now his enemy lies dead beneath a tree. On the other hand, the speaker has not literally killed his foe. In the beginning the enemy is the speakers’ foe.However, by the end the foe is now his friend. The speaker might have finally realized through experience that when you are honest with someone about your feelings. Then the anger inside of you dies away.

In return, this honesty leads to the death of a foe and the birth of a friend. I really like this poem. I like the way the poem is interesting and makes you think. It is confusing, but when you realize what it is about the deeper you get inside the poem. I think there need to be more poems like this. This is my paper bout the extended metaphors in the poem “a poison tree”.

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