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Question: How does Blake create a sinister tone in ‘A Poison Tree’?
Answer: Blake creates a sinister tone in his allegorical ballad ‘a poison tree’ through a central metaphor of a tree, the parison of wrath and biblical principles (like in a parable) causing and underlying sinister tone.
The opening stanza is unforgettably memorable. The form of each couplet is grammatically the same, substituting four words- from the ending of anger with the ‘friend’, to the continuing anger with the ‘foe’. It presents the difference between the way the narrator handles ‘wrath’; with friends, we are able to converse and sort out problems- we can admit our anger so the relationship stays healthy. With our enemies, however, our inability to be honest means anger ‘grows’ and becomes a bigger problem. This isocolon forces the reader to compare the contrasting attitudes in parallel structure as shifts in tone from a conversational tone for the first three lines ...(short extract)
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- Subject: English Literature
- Course: English Literature
- Level: GCSE
- Year: Not applicable
- Mark: Not available
- Words: 663
- Date submitted: January 22, 2017
- Date written: January, 2017
- References: No
- Document type: Essay*
- Essay ID: 7787
