A Poison Tree - Notes
A Poison Tree - Notes
A Poison Tree by William Blake has four different stanzas. It starts as a first person poem, where
the poet is expressing his anger and hatred towards his enemy. The poem then takes a turn and ‘I’
is replaced with the word ‘It’, a pronoun to depict the feelings of the enemy.
On the other hand, when you are angry with an enemy, it takes ages for you to calm your anger.
Yet, the anger and the feeling of vengeance do not diminish, even with time. In fact, the
vengeance simply grows.
He has also nurtured the hatred with his sarcastic smiles, imagining ill and cursing his enemy to
go through the same or worse sufferings that he has been through.
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Finally, the day comes when the poet’s enemy has met the evil fruit of vengeance, that he has
grown with his fears, tears and sarcasm. The fruit has now turned into a weapon. When the
enemy confronts with this anger, it is time for the weapon to serve the purpose that it has been
made for.
There he is; his enemy, dead under the tree of his hatred. He bit the poisoned apple of his
vengeance. He is murdered.
Metaphor-A growing apple tree is an extended metaphor for the growing anger and it shows
how destructive anger can be. The title “A Poison Tree” is the central metaphor. The apple
has become poisonous as it has been nurtured with anger. In other words, the tree
grew with negative emotions. When we stay angry for a long time, we may become
“A Poison Tree” (a person full of negative emotions).
Setting-The persona’s garden. The garden where the apple tree grows. The apple tree that
features the apple which lures the enemy.
Symbolism-The apple represents anger. The apple grows large till it ripens. Similarly,
anger grows till it becomes vengeance.
Themes:
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Managing Anger: It is not totally wrong to be angry. However, it is rather important for us
to know how to deal with anger. If we nurture our anger, it might grow and be harmful to
us. In this poem, two ways of handling anger were shown with different outcomes. In
the first scenario, the anger disappeared but in the second the anger grew into
something aggressive and negative.
Importance of Communication: As shown in the poem, if the persona had communicated
with his enemy, his anger would have been controlled. However, his refusal to communicate
has allowed anger to become something that is very destructive. Therefore it is often better
if we can communicate with people on the issues that is bugging us. The poet
indirectly is trying to persuade his readers to talk about their anger. We can talk about it not
only with our friends but with our enemies too. If we talk, the anger might just reduce and it
might just ease our troubles. In turn, it will prevent us from causing hurt unto others.
Moral Value
In the poem, the narrator or persona first gets angry at a friend. He talks to his friend and
that dialogue resolves his problem so that he can forgive his friend.
Then he grows angry at an enemy. Rather than communicate with his enemy and hash the
problem out, he holds the anger inside.
As the poem puts it, he "waters" the anger with his tears, and then "suns" it with the false
smiles he offers his enemy.
Eventually, this anger grows and grows until it becomes a tree that bears a shiny, poisonous
apple. The enemy eats the apple and dies.
The poet means for us to see ourselves in the persona who nurtured his anger at his enemy
by watering it with his "tears" and sunning it with his deceitful "smiles." If we stuff down our
anger, pretend we're happy, and don't resolve our conflicts, our anger will grow and grow
until it becomes like a poisonous plant that will hurt other people. The poet shows us a
different and healthier path in the first stanza, where the persona confronts the friend who
makes him angry and works out the problem. The poem suggests that we have a choice
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about how we behave and that resolving our issues with others is far better than letting
them fester.
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