Repressed Energy
William Blake’s “A Poison Tree” metaphorically illustrates how the energy of human anger, can exert either a destructive or a constructive force to bear fruit of such emotions accordingly. The state of the speaker’s mind is not necessarily against the “wrath” itself but rather tries to create the mood against the “repression of wrath.” The speaker starts from a premise where “wrath” is accepted as an innate element of human nature.
His emphasis is on exploring the effect of repressed anger. For example, the very first line: “I was angry with my friend:” demonstrates how natural and common it is for humans to feel anger even towards our most beloved ones, our friends. It is when this natural phenomenon of human emotion is concealed behind a deceitful smiles, it generates destructive current harmful to both the harborer and the receiver of wrath. In the poem, the speaker was angered twice; his first anger was dissipated through an employment of constructive force, which expelled it out, and the latter enlarged and grown to bear poisonous fruit by engaging in a destructive force which deceptively suppressed and concealed the feelings. The speaker’s free will to use his imaginative faculty to either preserve the beloved or to destroy the abhorred, is an instructive example of Blake’s doctrine where “innocence” is representing the positive force versus “experience” is representing the negative force.
The tree symbolizes the “wrath” which was planted obscurely in the speaker’s heart to provide it to grow and bear the fruit of vengeance. Instead of respecting the beauty of “balancing the good and evil” in our imaginative mind, the speaker soaked his “innocence” in filth of corruptness and depleted only the evil side of his mental faculty as he conceived, concocted and schemed to take the life of his foe. Line 5, “And I watered it in fears” seemed to reveal the speaker’s initial stage of conscientious awareness of discerning good from evil was yet intact: since, generally, in order to “fear”, one must experience the feelings of wrongness in his heart. But in line 7 & 8, “ And I sunned it with smiles, / And with soft deceitful wiles” he seemed to have quickly ignored the small still voice that rung from his “well of innocence” and allowed his other side, the side that welcomes and thrives on “experience” took over. His faculty of volition chose revenge over grace. After he had somewhat numbed his moral senses, it became easier for him to aim and simmer his wrath till perfection.
However, from the passage,“ And it grew both day and night,/ Till it bore an apple bright (9-10),” the readers sense that the success of the speaker’s vengeful plot being carried out to a complete decimation of his foe relied not only upon the man’s ingenious planning but also relied upon his endurance and patience of a full cycle of season, till the tree bore fruit. Understanding intelligibly and precisely what was needed to let the poisonous tree grow, he, in whom God dwells, with his God-like power, implanted the vile seed Delicately and cautiously, for a whole season, he rendered the tree of its needed nutrients: water, sun and a fertile soil. Excitedly and secretly, bearing in his bosom, the anticipation of his uncertain success of murderous plot, he made sure the soil in which the tree grew was within the proximity of his enemy’s reach. His divine free will, gave him the prerogative of eliminating one member of the human race out of his sight. He ignored that this venomous imagination on his part, will bear a cost of exhausting his other creative energy, his “innocence.” Just as the omnipotent and omniscient Creator of mankind had exercised his privilege to place the “tree of temptation” within a comfortable reach of Adam and Eve, and just as Adam and Eve who though warned of the portentous danger, knowingly partook of the irresistibly sensuous appearing fruit, likely, the Speaker’s enemy, being impulsively vulnerable to the temptation, partook of the fruit in haste.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,
And into my garden stole,
When the night had veild the pole; (11-14)
If the planter of the tree had been guilty of the secret motives behind the seemingly beautiful poisonous tree, then, his foe is also guilty in the dark and secret steps he took to steal the tempting fruit, which decisively trapped him down and immediately sapped his last breath. Thus, the Speaker’s foe, though previously had been fully aware of the imminent danger, by being temporarily carried astray by his wishful thinking, fell into the deadening soil of the poisonous tree.
The poem “A Poison Tree,” is keenly distressing to the minds and feelings of the readers because Blake’s illustration of the two opposing powers of human beings: “open expression of wrath” and “deceptive repression of wrath” were being tried and tested poetically to bring “preservation of life” for the former, and “annihilation of life” for the latter. Blake’s choice of the “poison tree” seemed an attempt on his part to seek a mystical union with the “forbidden tree” which was in the Garden of Eden that he had read from a Bible. Blake, being the believer of God’s presence and power suffused in all man, depicts the speaker of the poem as one who is capable of either creating or destroying life. To Blake, “perfect, pure, and utopian state” is the state of “innocence.” Contrariwise, in his world of “experience” the evil coexist with the good. Accordingly, the poem’s dwelling is in the domain of Blake’s “experience” since it clearly addresses the sick and corrupted side of the mankind. Blake detests concealment of feelings, and this poem certainly demonstrates the profound effect of such concealed emotional anger. Although he seemed to be condemning the speaker’s evil deed, he is not necessarily condemning the property of evil itself, since Blake realizes that evil is an essence for the “good” to be recognized as “good.” Without the opposing influence of evil the good will loose its meaning and effectiveness and its sacred power will be vanished. Thus, the moral of this poem is not in judging the vileness of the speaker; rather, it is in seeing through the speaker’s deeds, the creative power in all man, which is beyond what we ordinarily assume it to be. Through his work, “A Poison Tree”, William Blake mystically and metaphorically showed the pre-eminence of the mind in each man, which is inherently divine, and can be employed to either imagine the good or the evil, create or destroy what s/he chooses to preserve or abandon respectively.
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