A Poison Tree by William Blake

A Poison Tree by William Blake is part of the Songs of Experience series. The narrator expresses frustration towards an entity, and the emotional sentiment eventually leads to the narrator murdering the person. The poem is centered on a tree, which was used to depict Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. Blake was mostly concerned with the soul of man, which he claims rises when granted rights, giving it a state of innocence. However, the circumstances presented in culture compel the person to obey the laws and adhere to social expectations, resulting in a state of experience. Similarly, The Cask of Amontillado written by Edgar Allan is a revenge tale where the main character narrates how will revenge against avenging upon Fortunato for an insult. In the story, Montresor wants to avenge to maintain his family motto of not allowing to be put down, which makes him appear weaker (Poe 312). The power of pride is shown in Montresor because he promises to protect his family name and must revenge for the insult he received from Fortunato (Poe 30). Therefore, in this two works of art Montresor and the speaker experience miscommunications with a friend, which leads to anger and results in theme seeking revenge.
One on the significant theme in Cask of Amontillado is revenge presented through a simple first person narrative where Montresor announces his intention to avenge Fortunato who had insulted him. The entire story depicts how he intends to avenge his anger. First, he has never allowed Fortunato to discover the hatred he had for him. For instance, one evening, when much inconsequentiality and festivity would be going on, he fixed his cruel, raging strategy into action with a lot of confidence that he was not going to be covered. The readers are sure that he was not going to be discovered until towards the end of the story (Poe 153). In this story, the reader is not informed clear of what Fortunato does that causes the revenge. On the surfaces, Montresor appears to be friendly to Fortunato, but he feels a lot of hatred for him. The two men are proud, but all have downfall that contributes to their tragic endings.
Poe’s use of language in the story contributes to the understanding of the self-motivated action between the two characters. These two characters are perceived different, but they all have the same motives. Montresor makes use of his personal encounter of Fortunato’s offense to became a judge, panel of adjudicators, and assassin in this tale, which also the narrator an unreliable storyteller(Nevi 8).
Fortunato is full of pride, and it is this pride that makes him fall into Montresor trap. Montresor realized he had a weak point and prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine (Poe 309), whereby, Fortunato’s pride was an avenue for him to execute his revenge by creating the nonexistent barrel of Amontillado that Fortunato would not fail to test. To ensure he drinks it, he teases Fortunato’s pride by saying he will request Luchesi to taste the wine (Poe 310). Fortunato does not want anybody to be better than him. So he will be forced to test the wine, this makes him insult both Montresor, and Luchesi ( Sova 31) Fortunato is full of pride that he fails to see the effects of his insults. Furthermore, he believes he is superior to others that are why he does not mind abusing others.
The artist used verbal irony to make the readers depict what the speaker means because what he does is entirely different from what he intends to do (Nevi 8). For example, the artists gave the character the name Fortunato which means fortunate in the Italian language. He also adds an extra element in the name to make it humorous to the character jovial and unsuspecting character. The dialogue between Montresor and the character makes use of verbal irony because he is aware that Fortunato does not know what was about to happen to him. He makes a remark to him that he is lucky and Fortunato interprets different thinking Montetesor is fond of him and is happy about meeting him. On the other hand, Montetesor is not happy with him and is just amused because meeting Fortunato provides an opportunity for fulfilling his plans (Wilson 34).
Use of the word luckily brings to mind the significance of Fortunato's name and the word is mainly inappropriate for Fortunato's fortune. Verbal irony also occurs when Montresor’s shows of the trowel to Fortunato to demonstrate that he was a Mason, whereby, he is just about to imprison Fortunato though he is not a Freemason. In addition to this, through dramatic irony, the artist develops the theme of revenge. Dramatic irony occurs when Fortunato is not aware of is misfortune. The setting in the story is also ironic leading the theme development, whereby, Montresor selected the jovial festival period to endorse his assassination because during the session no one would be around to witness his actions. Fortunato is also dressed in an entertainer's suit, and the clinging of his comedian's chimes remind the reader of the environment of cheerfulness and joyfulness outdoors the tombs. Apart from this, the setting is also symbolic because Montresor uses the context to entice Fortunato to accompany him and look for the wine, and as the story unfolds the two characters move to the graveyard, and Fortunato moves from freedom to imprisonment (Nevi 8).
Similarly, A Poison Tree is a poem developed to depict the theme of anger and the consequences of this feeling. In the poem, readers discover that acting in anger increases the sense of vengeance. Suppression of anger contributes to dangerousness forces that can destroy an individual. Furthermore holding anger can be fatal and in turn, kills a person. Using images, word choice, and punctuation. Blake makes the readers understand the effects of suppressing anger within an individual. The poet used the metaphoric style in the Poison Tree to represent his vengeance in the poem. For example, Apple portrays his revenge, and tree shows his loss of tolerance, under which he destroys his enemy. The poem has end rhymes developed to improve the theme of anger and make the reader understand the consequences of suppressed anger. In the first line second and the fourth line there is the rhyming scheme will illustrate vengeance. In the first paragraph there is the use of friend’ and, there is the use of respective lines enemy and grow. Furthermore, in this stanza, the poet is not only expressing his anger towards his friend, but he is discussing the different types of anger. He says that when one is angry with the friend it thinks of forgiving him, and when an individual is angry with an enemy it will take him ages to find ways of revenging. In fact, with the suppression, the vengeance develops and can affect the individual and the victim (Stauffer 37).
Cultivation of Anger is depicted in the poem, and cultivation of anger makes it germinate into a seed that is nurtured by the strength of the annoyed individual, wrath develops into a massive and damaging force. Remaining in anger only prevents spiritual growth among the people who suppress anger. In addition to this, the poem is about dealing with anger with a friend or an enemy. For example, in the first stanza, the poet introduces someone who is angry with his friend, and the anger developed and in the second stanza his temper drawn up and takes pleasure in it, and pretend to be closure to the friend so as to fulfill his revenge. In the third stanza, the poet makes the anger grow and becomes a fascinating thing. In this stanza, the poet used an illusion to illustrate how his anger had developed. Finally, in the last stanza, the poet used two lines to indicate that his friend finally fell into the trap (Stauffer 38).
The poet used the tree as a metaphor of anger which grows and finally bears fruits, and this anger eventually develops from pure anger to a more complicated anger. For instance, line five, the poet says he watered it in fears, and in the second stanza, there is the use of watered and sunned and towards the end of the poem the tree is sunned and it symbolizes anger. Water and the sun are essential for the growth of the tree band in this line the persona keeps his anger by supplying fears and tears making the tree develop (Stauffer 38).
The Night and morning with my tears written in line six symbolize that the persona keeps the anger every time in his life and the anger controls him. The anger has controlled him and left him with space. Tears used in this stanza symbolize severe pains and he watered the tree with tears and not water. Tears combined with the fears the two threaten him causing a lot of anger for the enemy (Stauffer 44).
In line three, the poet has used the phrase, And I sunned it with smiles, which symbolize the sun as an aspect of life. In the poem, sunned means being burned and the sun can burn you causing a lot of damages. Moreover, the similes used in this context are fake smiles, and they are used as a trap. Apart from this, in the statement And with soft deceitful wiles, soft symbolizes something uncaught because he uses decisive looks to attract the enemy and not to scare him away (Stauffer 45).
Just like the rhyming patterns personification is important in this poem. The Apple used in the composition is an imagery as well as personation because it represents the person's anger growing into a being in itself. The rhythmic sounds are organized in such a way that the words remain in the readers head. Although the words used seems to have a rhythmic flow they still hide the real intentions of the persona. Terms such as angry, wrath, sunned, smiles, outstretched, and Apple can easily be noticed in the poem because the poet makes the standout compared to the others.
In conclusion, the poem was developed to help people learning how to react to their feelings before the feelings get out of hand and cause a lot of problems which can destroy the individual or other people. The poet created a context familiar to people to make the message understood by a broad audience. In the same way, the short story was developed to explain how a man takes a fatal decision of revenging on a friend who insulted him. The story revolves around a man being buried alive. The author used several symbols and images to develop the theme of revenge. Montresor is motivated by revenge to ensure that he punishes Fortunato previous insult. This actions and plans are not revealed to the reader. Finally, there is no indication in the story that he is remorseful, and we are left wondering whether he is sorry for his actions and the reasons that made him commit the revenge.











Works cited
Nevi, Charles N. “Irony and ‘The Cask of Amontillado’.” The English Journal 56.3 (1967):
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Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Cask of Amontillado.” Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. Ed.
Laurie G. Kirzner and Stephen R. Mandell. 6th ed. Boston: Thomson Wadsworth, 2007.
Stauffer, Andrew. Anger, Revolution, and Romanticism. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2009.
Sova, Dawn. Edgar Allan Poe, A to Z: the essential reference to his life and work. New
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Wilson, Susan. Literary Trail of Greater Boston. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,
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