The Charge of the Light Brigade, The Living Photograph, What has Happened to Lulu?, A Poison Tree
Tanjong Rhu, Leaving, The Right Thing To Do, Dear Mr. Kilmer
For a fixed 15 marks, students need to read all the texts. How much time allocated for all these, between files, courses, meetings and other aspects like directed, continuous writing, grammar and summary practice is a big question by itself. Any one excerpt can be questioned so this batch is going to be facing another high jump soon.
To help my students understand and tackle the various needs of the literature paper, i have read the needed books and am trying to dissect and understand the literal and figurative meanings of the said literary products.
William Blake was an English poet, painter and print maker who lived from 28 November, 1757 to 12 August, 1827. One of his well known poem is ' A Poison Tree'.
This poem is about anger. The anger is directed at someone and keeping it until it becomes an obsession. The poem is written from the first person point of view. The persona talks about anger issues within him. When he is angry with a friend, he settles the misunderstanding by talking to him but when he is angry with an enemy he does not attempt to settle the issue. He allows the feeling of anger to fester within himself. He doesn't do anything to solve the problem and pretends that everything is fine. He feeds his anger intensely, daily till it literally grows into a 'poison tree' or an apple tree which bears a poisonous apple. The poisoned apple is the consumed hatred of the persona. It is a fruit of evil digestion. The fruit appear to become a bait to the foe. Death in the poem indicate that the enemy suffers severe consequences when he attempts to retaliate to the persona's bait.
We can say that William Blake choice of the apple compared to other fruits is brilliant and full of significance because it is easily identified especially in the terms of the Bible. The apple here is considered poisonous just as how it was forbidden to Adam and Eve. This is easily digestible as William Blake is religious and the apple could be referenced on how Adam was tempted to eat it. This seems suitable as it is tempting to dwell and think of revenge although many things can be dealt with in other ways. This poem deals with anger. It is indirectly advising that anger is unhealthy to a person.
When one is angry it is alright to face it and be angry for a while. To deny this emotion is just as bad as hiding it. However after an appropriate length of time, common sense should be applied and anger should be resolved. One should consider whether it is making you a better person. if the answer is no, then clear steps need to be taken to address it such as talking to someone about it. Coming to terms that even though there can be nothing done by the other party to make you feel better or to simply learn to let go and move on with life are other ways of coming to terms with anger.
Of course we can visit counselors and psychologists to sort anger professionally. When keeping negative emotions bottled up, hormones become imbalanced. This can cause ill effects to health. Humans are creatures of huge emotions and these feelings need an outlet. Negative emotions such as anger can be like a boiling kettle where the steam has to be released or the kettle will explode, damaging the kettle and at the same time hurting others.It is proven medically that people who get angry often fall sick often. One should have recreational pastimes to balance stress from work and home.
The setting is the persona's workplace and house, time is from a few days to weeks
themes are holding back feelings of anger, releasing one's anger, lies, deceits and evil ways
language and style simple language yet difficult to understand at one read,
tone and mood is sad, angry and serious
poetic devices such as sound devices; alliteration, assonance,
literary devices; symbol, imagery, repetition, irony, personification, contrast,simile, metaphor and diction aspects need not be deeply scrutinized as this might not be an essay question but no harm in reading and understanding all the elements.
This is a review from my point of view. It might be added or edited later if I find other views at other frequent reading.
If one should need help with this poem, feel free to contact me. You can email me at eaglez121@yahoo.com
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