A Poison Tree by William Blake (1794)
‘A Poison Tree’ by William Blake was written in 1794. It tells the story of a boy who gets really angry with his enemy, so he gets revenge. So a seed grows in him which turns into an apple. The enemy eats this poisonous apple and dies. In “A Poison Tree,” by William Blake is a metaphor explains a truth of human nature. This poem teaches how anger can be maxed out by goodwill to become a deadly poison. The opening stanza sets up everything for the poem, from the ending of anger with the “friend,” to the continuing anger with the “foe.” Blake startles the reader with the clarity of the poem, and with metaphors that can apply to many instances of life. Blake also uses several forms of figurative language. He works with a AABB rhyme scheme to keep his poem going on. These ideals let him to better express himself. The personification in “A Poison Tree” is both as a means by which the poem's metaphors are revealed, supported, and as a way for Blake to show the greater illustration of the wrath. The wrath the speaker feels is not directly personified as a tree, but as something that grows slowly and bears fruit. In the opening stanza the speaker states, “My wrath did grow.” The speaker later describes the living nature of the wrath as one which, “grew both day and night,” and, “bore an apple bright.”This comparison by personification of wrath to a tree illustrates the speaker's idea that, like the slow and steady growth of a tree, anger and wrath gradually come up and form just as mighty and deadly as a poisoned tree. Now the extended metaphors in the first line “I was angry with my friend” the speaker explains that he had had a disagreement with “his friend,” and he had felt anger toward this friend, but he told his friend about his feelings and that ended the negative attitude toward the friend. But then he had a disagreement with another person who was not his friend. As a matter of fact, this person was his heart discussion. “Foe,” his enemy. No doubt, because