Running head: A POISON TREE, BY: WILLIAM BLAKE
A Poison Tree, By: William Blake
Carly Kemp
ENG 125
07/02/2012
Alexander Perez
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A POISON TREE, BY: WILLIAM BLAKE
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A Poison Tree, By: William Blake
A poison tree by William Blake is the essence of Karma and revenge. He writes about
two choices with two effects with different variables. One variable being a foe and one a friend,
and the choices that are being mad at his friend he lets his anger go but when angered by a foe
his anger grows. Though these are both choices in that he could stay angry at the friend and vice
versa the enemy but going of his knowledge of human nature Blake realizes that one would be
more likely to forgive a friend than a foe. Thus he chose not to forgive and his "wrath did grow".
In the second stanza Blake writes that he nurtured his "wrath" with "fears" and "tears"
daily meaning that he dwelled on this anger for his foe giving it his undivided attention. And
"sunned it with smiles and soft deceitful wiles, which bore testament to how far he was willing to
hold a grudge and he purposefully kept the issue from becoming resolved through confronting
his enemy with his true feelings because he wanted to be angry and he went so far as deceit to
keep the foe from being able to apologize and work through the issue.
In the third stanza William writes that the anger glee till it developed into
something the foe coveted and being his enemy the foe cares not that the "apple bright" was the
narrator's. The writer says this with not a sense of anger but with glee for he knows his foe will
want to take what is his and the narrator knows that this fruit was the product of poisonous hate
being fed into it night and day and he uses this knowledge that his enemy will take it even
though it is not his and lies and waits for his revenge to set in.
In the final stanza we come to the ultimate consequence for the foe, which is
deliciously justified and backs the poem in an almost biblical way "thou shall not covet" and of
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course what is learned at a very young age don't touch other people's stuff, but the moral of the
story is light heartedly comical even though it is so final and it is almost female in nature. “Hell
hath no fury like a woman scorned.” The narrator is so pleased when his trap is sprung and the
next morning he finds his enemy who of course being predicable sneaks into the narrator’s
garden at night and steals his poisoned fruit, is now dead underneath the tree. The apple is
symbolic for greed, hate and revenge wrapped in a pretty package irresistible and grown
especially for this foe’s demise. William Blake is a very symbolic writer and many of his works
are biblical in nature, this is very apparent In A Poison Tree there are many similarities to
Moses’s story in Genesis coinciding with the Garden of Eden. In the Garden of Eden God told
Adam and Eve not to eat from a certain tree and that if they did, they would die. Although in
Blake’s poems his narrator purposefully deceives and in no way tells the foe not to eat the poison
tree but it does imply that his foe knew the apple was not his but took it anyway. Although the
narrator does give the enemy a chance to walk away, yet he chooses to take what is the narrator’s
and the narrator knows that he will take his apple but decides not to warn him in any way that the
apple is in fact poison. In the end the narrator sits back and watches knowing that his foe cannot
resist his apple and it becomes the death of his foe and the narrator’s ultimate revenge.
In this particular poem the pattern of sound William Blake used is a masculine rhyme
where the final syllables are stressed and identical in sound. The imagry in this poem is very
distinct and it uses a gardening aspect. He waters it with “fears” and “tears” and it grows into an
“apple bright”. It also states “and into my garden stole”, he doesn’t use descriptive words yet he
uses a theme to present a word picture.
Writers rely on their abilities to use symbols, descriptive words and themes to
create a picture that their reader can understand. This is a honed skill that is the most important
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thing writers can do when trying to communicate to the reader their point of view. Without this
direction the reader has to many ways to go with their thinking and they can get confused or lost
or miss the point completely. Poems are a short way of creating an impression that will stick with
the reader and if the writer doesn’t create the correct impression then the reader won’t get it at
all. William Blake is a master at this and his symbolism and ideas led way to criticism in a
radical way. He was a pioneer and a non-conformist that had radical ideas which some named
him insane for. (poets.org)
A POISON TREE, BY: WILLIAM BLAKE
References:
The Holy Bible, Genesis, Moses.
Literature for Composition, Sylvan Barnet, William Burto, William E. Cain (2007), 8th
Edition.
Poets.org, William Blake, (1998) Academy of American Poets.
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