the poison tree notes

7/25/2019 The Poison Tree Notes

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The Poison Tree by William Blake provides a clear lesson on how to handle anger both with

a friend and enemy. The narration is first person point of view with a nameless speaker.

The poetic form has four quatrains with a set rhyme scheme: BB. This means that each

quatrain has two couplets. This rhyme scheme creates a simple and easy way to follow the

flow of the poem. !t makes a powerful statement about how conflict should be handled. !n

his poem" Blake warns about the ill effects of holding malice inside oneself. The poem is a

metaphor for what happens when one allows anger to grow within.

The first quatraindescribes a friend getting angry at his friend. Because the speaker knew

and liked this person" he e#plained his feelings and the conflict was resolved. The anger

ended. $n the other hand" the speaker clashed with a person that he did not like. %e held

that irritation inside and did not e#press or tell the other person what was wrong. Thatresentment began to grow inside the speaker.

The second quatrainbegins the e#tended metaphor with the comparison of the anger and the

poison tree. !nitiating the idea of the narrator cultivating his rage" he waters the budding tree

with fear and tears every day and even the night. &till" the enemy does not know of this

growing fury. 'ear can make a person act out of character and lose his emotional balance.

(eceptively" the speaker employs his smiles as though it was the application of the sun to this

to#ic tree. With charm" he allows no inter)ection or awareness of his wrath.

nd ! watered it in fears"*ight and morning with my tears+

nd ! sunned it with smiles"

nd with soft deceitful wiles.

The third quatrainnurtures the tree,ire metaphor. nger poisons the human spirit+

furthermore" it endangers the ability to use logical reasoning. 'inally" this tree bears the fruit

of the narrator-s fury in the form of a beautiful" appealing apple as in the Biblical forbidden

fruit. The enemy desires the apple and realies that it belongs to the speaker.

The final quatrainbrings the anger to an end+ however" the narrator has lost his humanity.

%e now is glad that the enemy is dead. The fruit of his antagonism /the poison apple0 luredthe enemy into the garden+ he ate the apple+ and now the foe has been eradicated. The last

couplet indicates that the narrator finds comfort in the death of the other man.

Blake uses the poem as a warning to those who harbor grudges and allow the feelings of

resentment to stay inside without dealing with them. 1ommunication becomes the only way

to avoid the fruit of the poison tree.


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William Blakes A Poison Tree: Critique and Appraisal

Human beings, along with the ability to reason and question, possess the capacity to

hate, and yet also to forgive. Unfortunately, forgiving someone is not always as easy

as holding a grudge against them and this lack of control over ones actions isinherent to human nature. In poison tree!, "illiam #lake critically discusses these

two opposing forces, uncovering the inherent weakness in humans, and the effects of

these innate flaws.

$hrough the use of e%tended metaphors and vivid imagery, #lake symbolically

portrays this fundamental flaw through the poem. $he central theme in the poem is

hatred and anger, dominating much of the authors thoughts. #lake e%presses this

through the introduction of a clever parallelism & the treatment of anger between a

friend and a foe. $hrough this, #lake emphasi'es the nature of anger & while

e%pressing and letting go of wrath ends it, suppression nurtures it. #lake startles the

reader with the clarity of the poem, and with metaphors that can apply to many

instances of life. (oison $ree is an allegory. $he tree here represents repressed

wrath) the water represents fear) the apple is symbolic of the fruit of the deceit which

results from repression. $his deceit gives rise to the speakers action in laying a

death*trap for his enemy. $he deeper meaning of the poem is that aggressive

feelings, if suppressed, almost certainly destroy personal relationships.

And it grew both day and night

Till it bore an apple bright

#lake further symboli'es this in the ne%t two stan'as. He appears to metaphor the

repression of anger and hatred to +a poison tree, thus giving it an identity. $he

personification in (oison $ree! e%ists both as a means by which the poems

metaphors are revealed, supported, and as a way for #lake to forecast the greater

illustration of the wrath. $he wrath the speaker feels is not directly personified as a

tree, but as something that grows slowly and bears fruit. In the opening stan'a the

speaker states, y wrath did grow.! $he speaker later describes the living nature of

the wrath as one which, grew both day and night,! and, bore an apple bright.! $his

comparison by personification of wrath to a tree illustrates the speakers idea that,

like the slow and steady growth of a tree, anger and wrath gradually accumulate and

form -ust as mighty and deadly as a poisoned tree.


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And I water d it in fears,

Night and morning with my tears;

And I sunned it with smiles,

And with soft deceitful wiles$o understand the metaphorical sense of the poem, one must first e%amine the title,

(oison $ree,! which alerts the reader that some type of metaphor will stand to

dominate the poem. In the second stan'a, #lake employs several metaphors that

reflect the growing and nurturing of a tree which compare to the feeding of hate and

vanity e%plored by the speaker. $he verses, nd I watered it with my tears! show

how the tears life lead an ob-ect of destruction. $he speaker goes further to say, nd

I sunned it with smiles! describing not only false intentions, but the processing of

sunning!, giving nutrients to a plant so that it may not only grow and live, but

flourish. In both of these metaphors, the basic elements for a tree to survive, water

and sunlight are shown in human despair and sadness.

#lake called the original draft of (oison $ree! /hristian 0orbearance,! suggesting

that what is meant to appear as a gentle attitude is often a mask for disdain and

anger. 0urthermore, #lake believed that the attitudes of piety that adherents of

conventional /hristianity were taught to maintain actually led to hypocrisy, causing

people to pretend to be friendly and accepting when they were not. $he

righteousness that the conventional religion prescribed, #lake believed, allowed

people to hide evil intent and to perform evil deeds, such as stifling the healthy

growth of children, under the cover of appearing virtuous.

And into my garden stole

When the night had eiled the pole

In the morning glad I see

!y foe outstretched beneath the tree

$he religious conte%t of the poem is also evident in two metaphorical allusions made

by the speaker towards the end of the poem. #lake, being a religious visionary, has

also critici'ed the views and actions of /hristianity. $his is evident in the symbol of

the +poison tree, which can be seen to make direct biblical reference to the tree of

knowledge, representing the evil e%isting within man. $hus, as the garden is symbolic

of the 1arden of 2den, the apple is symbolic of apple which brought dam and eve to

their demise. It is the evil and poison that is bared from anger, the fruit of the poisontree. s in the biblical story, the apple here is beautiful on the outside, while


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poisonous and deadly underneath. #y presenting the apple, #lack is symbolic of the

3erpent, maliciously deceiving his foe and bringing his demise. $he serpent in #lack

is his weakness, and -ust like he, all humans have this inherent flaw inside of them.

#lack uses this to critici'e /hristian forgiveness, e%pressing that while /hristiansbelieve in +turning the other cheek, by forgiving and repressing anger, they are

ignoring the basic flaw e%isting in our human nature. 3ymbolically, the speaker

represents 1od, the foe and garden represent dam and 2ve in the 1arden of 2den,

and the tree represents the $ree of 4nowledge of 1ood and 2vil in 1enesis. If this

analogy is true, it shows 1od re-oicing in killing his enemies, which most people

think the 1od they know would never do.

/onclusively, (oison $ree! teaches a lesson and asserts a moral proposition rather

than offering a critique of a theological system, the lesson is less concerned with

anger than with demonstrating that suppressing the e%pression of feelings leads to a

corruption of those feelings, to a decay of innocence, and to the growth of cunning

and guile. 5epeatedly in 3ongs of 2%perience, not -ust in (oison $ree,! #lake

argues that the religious doctrines intended to train people, especially children, in

virtue are cruel and cause harm. In addition, #lake depicts those who implement

religious discipline as sadistic. #lakes poetry, while easy to understand and

simplistic, usually implies a moral motif on an almost basic level. $he powerful

figurative language in (oison $ree! is so apparent that it brings forth an apparent

message as well. $he poem is not a celebration of wrath) rather it is #lakes cry

against it. $hrough this, #lake warns the reader of the dangers of repression and of

re-oicing in the sorrow of our foes.

the poison tree notes

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