A Poison Tree: Concealed Anger and Growing Wrath
When confronting growing anger, humans are more likely to confront their friends than their foes. William Blake’s A Poison Tree confronts the issues of concealing one’s anger. By using metaphor and symbolism the speaker indicates that concealing one’s anger will cause the anger to grow out of control. The speaker in A Poison Tree indicates that concealing one’s anger will cause the anger to grow out of control by using metaphor. The most important metaphor used in A Poison Tree is that wrath is a growing tree. This metaphor is shown in the poem with the quote, “I was angry with my foe:/ I told it not, my wrath did grow.” (Blake 2-3). This metaphor is also shown with the title of William Blake’s poem “A Poison Tree.” This extended metaphor shows that wrath is a growing tree. This metaphor compares a growing tree to wrath. This shows that wrath is a growing organism. This growing tree came to be from the wrath being concealed. This helps support the theme because it shows the intense growing of wrath when one does not tell one’s foe about one’s wrath. …show more content…
One of the symbols in A Poison Tree is smiles and deceitful wiles representing falsehood and lies to the speaker’s foe. The speaker did not speak of his wrath, therefore he “sunned it with smiles,/ And with soft deceitful wiles.” (Blake 7-8). This supports the theme because it shows that not speaking of one’s wrath caused the wrath to grow. Another symbol in A Poison Tree is the actual poison tree. This poison tree is representative of the wrath that the speaker cultivates when he does not speak of it to his foe. This wrath grows out of hand and results in the foe’s death. This tree is made of poison, and that poison is anger and wrath. This symbol helps support the theme because it shows that the uncontrollable poison tree is a reprimand of the speaker not telling his foe of his