A Poison Tree Analysis

In chapter 1 titled “Chloroform (CHCI3 )” of The Poisoner’s Handbook by Deborah Blum, the most interesting story developed within the chapter was the unsolved mystery of eight deaths in a refuge called Odd Fellows Home. Frederic Mors, who claimed to be responsible for all these eight murders, confessed his own guilt in front of the district attorneys. As it was said, “To prove that these elderly residents had been poisoned, they needed solid evidence. [Rumors, suspicions, and anecdotes, a confession by a suspect who might just be crazy, weren’t enough to charge a man with murder.]” (Blum 13).

The poet addresses issues of the child observing an unhealthy and abusive relationship between his/her father and mother in the third stanza. The eighth line states, “Do we forgive our Fathers for marrying or not marrying our Mothers?” These words insinuate that the father treated the child’s mother badly or was abusive to her and that she deserved better. This is so considering the only reason to forgive someone for marrying another implies they treated that person improperly. Likewise, having to forgive someone for not marrying another simply displays how the other person never received what he or she

The third and fourth stanzas offer the poems greatest paradoxes. The author speaks of the lovers being "At this unique distance from isolation" which is to say they are in the one place where they can truly be themselves, in their natural habitat, doing that which is only natural to human instinct. Despite these circumstances, however, the two are at a loss: "It becomes still more difficult to find / Words at once true and kind, / Or not untrue and not unkind." It is through this final stanza that the author conveys the ultimate paradox of human relationships: Relationships are not built upon true love for one another; rather they are built upon the absence of hatred.

The poem creates the theme that holding in anger may lead to awful consequences through first person point of view by describing the poet’s struggle to release his emotions that eventually cause him to hurt his enemy. For instance, after stating that he told his friend about his anger, and his anger died, Blake says, “ I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow.” This quote from the poem shows that this is written in a first person point of view. The poet then goes on to describe how he watered down his anger, and it continued growing. At the end,

· In the first line of the poem, the speaker expresses her feelings towards men by using the word “Anger”(1). From just the

The poet uses many metaphors, repetition and morbid diction to illicit the response I had to this poem. Firstly, Butson compared the emotions and internal struggles of a

The main conflict in the poem, “Introduction to Poetry”, is that a teacher is troubled by his students not wanting to put effort into understanding poetry. He uses metaphors and similes to explain how a poem should be analyzed to be understood and appreciated and how the students want to understand what the poem means without putting in the effort and mindset that go into reading poetry. For example, the author says, “and hold it up to the light like a color side”, which is a simile that explains how the teacher is comparing the

The main character Melinda has stopped growing and changing, which leads to her being depressed. This is shown when Melinda states, “My tree is hopeless” (page 152). This quote does not only tell how Melinda changes due to being quiet, but it also relates to the speaker in “A Poison Tree”. These two stories relate because in “A Poison Tree” the speakers identity is also changing just like Melindas, and he also suffers in the end from not speaking up by becoming evil. Melinda feels that she is the “screwed-up ninth-grader” by not talking at all, which made others think she needed “professional help” (Page 105 & 153). This tells the reader that Melinda thinks the is useless and also an outcast. This is the “poison” that Melinda drinks and the poison that the speaker drink in “A Poison Tree” makes them evil. Even though these are two different emotions they still got poisoned from not engaging in conversations. The use of “poison” indicates that both main characters can be effected from something so toxic that it can change there whole perspective of the

Inner conflicts often dictate what the narrator wants, but cannot have, which creates the overall attitude of the poem. The narrator struggles to look at this woman because his "eyes take no delight to range/ about the gleam which on your face do grow" (3-4). He is not able to look at her even though she is beautiful due to the heartbreak that she left him with. This attitude carries on throughout the poem where he acknowledges her beauty but is unwilling to be hurt by her again. He is in agony from the emotions that she inflicts, and the readers see his mental process of working through it as he comes to the conclusion that he will "wink or else hold down my head" because it is her eyes that cause his "bale" (14-15). His attitude changes from being at war with his inner feelings to being accepted to the fact that if he looks at her he will be in danger of being hurt a second time. The irony being applied shows how his conflicted attitude is made clear by acknowledging that he will not give in to his desire despite what his repressed emotions are saying. Irony can be highly influential in discovering the narrator's hidden agenda and purposes, and the words chosen to reveal these purposes have an impact on the overall attitude of a piece of

The apple sits on a white plate. The plate has the words ‘For You’ on it. The plate was something I added to the poem. Since the narrator’s enemy knew that the apple belonged to the narrator, the plate shows that the narrator was ready for his enemy to take the apple. The words inscribed on the plate are used to appeal to the enemy to guarantee that he eats the poison. The words are written in black to magnify the toxicity of the narrator’s hatred for their foe. The plate is white to appeal to the enemy. White signifies innocence, purity, and peace. When the enemy sees the plate, they would not guess that it is holding a lethal apple. The grass covers some of the plate up to make the painting more realistic. Grass would naturally get onto the

William Blake was a painter, engraver and poet of the Romantic era, who lived and worked in London. Many of Blake’s famous poems reside in his published collection of poems titled Songs of Innocence and of Experience. This collection portrays the two different states of the human soul, good and evil. Many poems in the Songs of Innocence have a counterpart poem in the Songs of Experience. The poem “A Poison Tree” is found in the Songs of Experience and it delves into the mind of man tainted with sin and corruption that comes with experience. In a simple and creative style, the religious theology of the Fall of Man is brought to life. The poem tells the story of how man fell from a state of innocence to impurity, focusing on the harmful repercussions of suppressed anger. Blake utilities many literary devices to successfully characterizes anger as an antagonist with taunting power.

The second stanza of the poem can be interpreted in many ways. The narrator mentions his fear and how at one point he broke down in tears. To me, this could mean that he is so headstrong about his hatred towards his enemy that it scares him. He couldn’t possibly be scared of his enemy because it was never mentioned that his enemy threatened him. The narrator then starts crying because he never expected to grow so quickly and instead of yelling about his anger, he develops these tears. Just as the unwanted emotions surface, the good emotions come up just as quickly. The narrator smiling could mean that he wants to mask everything with a smile to show his enemy that he’s doing fine. It could also mean that he’s enjoying how everything is unfolding.

Blake uses traditional symbols of angels and devils, animal imagery, and especially images of fire and flame to: 1) set up a dual world, a confrontation of opposites or "contraries" which illustrate how the rules of Reason and Religion repress and pervert the basic creative energy of humanity, 2) argues for apocalyptic transformation of the self "through the radical regeneration of each person's own power to imagine" (Johnson/Grant, xxiv), and 3) reconstructs Man in a new image, a fully realized Man who is both rational and imaginative, partaking of his divinity through creativity. The form of the poem consists of "The Argument," expositions on his concepts of the "contraries" and of "expanded perception" which are both interspersed with "Memorable Fancies" that explicate and enlarge on his expositions, and concludes with "A Song of Liberty," a prophecy of a future heaven on earth.

This captures the frustration and the regret of having to deal with the situation in a Jeckle and Hyde sort of way, in that person one is very calm and although frustrated manages to turn to religion for help whereas in the second part of the poem they rebel against religion and it’s teachings and have corrupt thoughts and feelings.

The poem begins with the narrator's describing the poem as a 'dream' that ''was not at all a dream'', which already causes doubt and tension within the reader. The narrator then goes on to talk about