A POISON TREE

BY WILLIAM BLAKE
A POISON TREE
 I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I watered it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles, A POISON TREE
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night.
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.
And into my garden stole,
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see;
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
 MEANING OF DIFFICULT WORDS

1. Wrath -strong, stern,

or fierce anger; deeply resentful indignation; ire.

2. Deceit –distortion
of the truth for the purpose of misleading; duplicity;
fraud; cheating

3. Wiles – Trick, trap

4. Veiled – conceal, lacking clarity or distinctness

PLOT OF THE STORY

THE POISON TREE

Literal Meaning-STANZA 1

The persona was angry with his

friend. He dealt with his angry
feelings and his anger melted
away. He was angry with his
enemy and did not sort it out
with the latter
Literal Meaning-STANZA 2

The persona fed his angry

feelings with fears and tears
daily. He also put on a
friendly front to deceive
others about his anger.
Literal Meaning-STANZA 3

The angry feeling grew so strongly

inside the persona that it became ‘
a poison tree’. The persona
compared it to an apple tree that
bore fruit or ‘an apple bright’. The
enemy saw the fruit and knew it
belonged to the persona.
Literal Meaning-STANZA 4

The enemy entered the

persona’s garden quietly at
night when it was dark to steal
the apple. In the morning, the
persona saw his enemy lying on
the ground beneath the tree.
 Figurative Meaning-STANZA 1
In life, our relationship with others are
normally based on two groups of people-

1. friends, those we can get along with

2. rivals,those who are hostile to us.

Disagreement among friends are never long

lasting because good feeling, trust and
confidence override hostility. Friends would
normally sit down and talk.
 Figurative Meaning-STANZA 2

On the other hand, when exchange

words with our rivals or people who are
hostile, we tend to close our minds and
not try to solve the unpleasant exchange
of words. We go all out to pretend that
everything is fine by putting on a false
front.
 Figurative Meaning-STANZA 3

We allow it to fester within ourselves

with unpleasant thoughts. We keep the
anger inside and become obsessed until
it builds up and poison our thinking as
well as our sense of right and wrong. We
let it grow out of proportion.
 Figurative Meaning-STANZA 4

Eventually we make no effort to hide our

unpleasant feelings even at the risk of
hurting our rivals. We might even feel
happy when misfortune befalls our rivals
Themes Keeping anger
and its
destructive
consequences
Anger, bottled up
Bad feelings like
revenge and anger among
death friends and rivals

THEMES
Human
Insincerity
nature
and deceit

The danger
Communication
of holding Obsession
among friends
back one’s and its
and rivals
feeling consequences
1. We should not allow anger to control our life
2. We should express our feelings in a healthy
way and not bottle them up
3. We should make peace with everyone, friend
and foe
4. We should know that obsession can lead to
loss of self-control and destruction
5. We should be sincere, even with our rivals
6. We should not wish ill on anyone including
people we are not comfortable with.
 Point of view & language and style
 Point of view
First person point of view

 Language and style

Indirect expression which requires some
consideration in understanding it
Tendency to use word with multiple
meanings,which are not immediately obvious
A message cum advise to get anger out of one’s
system
Tone ,Mood and atmosphere & rhyme
and rhythm
Poetic devices
Literary Devices
POETIC/LITERARY DEVICES
 1. Personification
 - Waters the wrath with fear
 - I told my wrath, my wrath did end


 2. Metaphor
 -The tree is considered as a wrath/anger
 -"Till it bore an apple bright", the apple is a metaphor for the "fruit" of his grudge.


 3. Alliteration
 -sunned and smiles
 -friend and foe
 -bore and bright


 4. Imagery
 - Throughout the poem


 5. Irony
 -the foe beneath the tree of hatred


 6. Repitition
 -“I was angry with my friend… I was angry with my foe”


 7. Allusion
 -"Garden.. apple...tree" alludes to Adam & Eve, the Garden of Eden.
STANZA BY STANZA ANALYSIS
 Stanza 1: William Blake speaks of someone,
his friend and his foe, whom has he is angry
with. When he says ‘I told my wrath, my
wrath did end’ after he said he was angry
with his friend, he is saying he was able to
get over being angry with his friend and
forgot about it. Although, it is quite the
opposite when he mentions’ I told it not,
and my wrath did grow’. Blake is saying that
with his enemy, he allowed himself to get
angry, and therefore, his wrath did grow.
 Stanza 2: In this stanza, Blake begins to
make his anger grow and he takes
pleasure in it, comparing his anger with
something, in this case, a tree or plant.
The speaker says he ‘sunned it with
smiles’ and ‘and with soft, deceitful wiles’.
This means he is creating an illusion with
his enemy saying he is pretending to be
friendly to seduce and bring him closer.
 Stanza 3: ‘And it grew both day and night’
and ‘til it bore an apple bright’ are meaning
that his illusion with his enemy is growing
and growing until it became a strong and
tempting thing. His illusion has a metaphor
and it is an apple. After, his foe believes it
shines, which means he thinks it’s true and
means something, and takes Blake illusion
seriously. ‘And he knew it was mine’ suggests
that he really thinks Blake is his friend.
 Stanza 4: Being the last stanza, Blake
needed to come up with a conclusion. He
has used the two lines ‘in the morning
glad I see’ and ‘my foe outstretched
beneath the tree’ to say that his foe finally
fell to his tempting illusion and
metaphorically, consumed his poison
apple and died. So, obviously, his malicious
intentions were hidden behind illusion
and he prevailed over his enemy.
CRITICAL APPRECIATION
 In the first stanza, the consequence of allowing anger to continue
instead of stopping it as it begins is shown. This consequence is
simply that it will continue to grow. However, as the poem
progresses, it is seen that this continued growth of anger can yield
harmful results as the enemy, or foe, is lured toward the tree and
eats of its fruit, the poison apple. This kills his foe, as he is seen
outstretched beneath the tree, a sight the speaker is glad to see the
next morning. These final two lines explain one of the main themes
of the poem, which is that anger leads to self-destruction. The
speaker’s anger grows and eventually becomes so powerful that it
has changes from simple anger with another person, to desire to
see them dead. One of the subjects of Blake’s work was the
underworld, or Hell, and knowing this, it can be seen that the
destruction which results from anger is not physical, but spiritual. In
addition, the death of the foe, which the speaker is glad to see, does
not spiritually affect the foe as the speaker is affected, but only
physically harms the foe.
READING MATERIAL
 Interpretation and Symbolism
 After reading such an amoral poem, the search for hope or
alternate meaning begins. A metaphor lives inside the poem, but
instead of making the poem less wicked, the analogy confuses and
questions faith.
 Symbolically, the speaker represents God, the foe and garden
represent Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and the tree
represents the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis. If
this analogy is true, it shows God rejoicing in killing his enemies,
which most people think the God they know would never do.
 Blake’s poem is peculiar even for today’s standards, and his analogy
may be ruthless and insensitive, but he does get the reader thinking.
By looking further into the poem, we find that the speaker
nourishes and feeds his wrath, which symbolically is the tree from
the Garden of Eden. Is Blake suggesting that God fed his wrath and
anger into the tree and intended for man to eat from it? If so, He is
creating a world doomed to His wrath and anger, an idea just about
anybody would shutter at.