Analysis of Poison Tree

Repression of feelings in society

There is a huge difference between how we deal problems with friends and how we do it with people who are not. One of the aspects that make friendship grow stronger is our sincerity towards the others, we tell a friend when we are happy, but we tell him when we got mad as well. In front of other people it seems to be different though, we always try to show our best smile and most of the time we are hiding our real feelings, this is what makes that inner feelings grow, if we do not get rid of them quickly, after something has happened, then it will be harder to handle. We must not care so much about what will the others think, but about ourselves and our feelings. We have the key to keep them balanced, telling what we really think, and if we do not agree with somebody in something, we need to express it and try to fix it from the beginning or else we will not able to do so.
“We nurse our misunderstandings with fears and strengthen them with our wicked tricks. We make secret efforts to bring about the destruction of our rivals. We adopt many ways to tempt and deceive them. Sometimes they fail to see the dirty tricks and fall a victim to our evil designs. When we see them fallen and defeated, we feel happy and proud of our success” As the quote says, Blake's poem shows this secret weapon the human being has as well. It is some kind of natural instinct which allows us to defeat our enemy by surprise, he does not expect us to be preparing a counterattack. We are hiding our true intentions in order to obtain advantage in our next move. Although it can be thought as an evil act, I think it its just another of the human being primary instincts to survive. We have been able to improve our defensive strategies throughout centuries of evolution . When it comes to deal with society we sometimes lack of strategies of immediate response, we are a thinking animal, we like to return to our house in order to prepare ourselves for an more appropriate response.
“Disgrace and destruction of one gives special pleasures to the other”
We can say we are social and civilized persons, but we can't deny our animal origins or our innate hidden cruelty. Under certain circumstances every single human being can go completely mad and enjoy with the other's suffering. There is a hidden part of our brain that reminds us that not so long ago we were just animals fighting for food, females, etc. All this kind of strategies we have been learning can not be just erased from our DNA. Whilst Blake critics this kind of behavior, I think that these kind of instincts and actions are innate as well as other. Of course society would be better if we could erase some of them, but if we take away our revenge instincts and strategies we could get rid of other as well, we do not choose what we are.

Religious hypocrisy

If we look at the poem from a religious point of view, we will see a critic from Blake to some Christian ideas as forgiveness and punishment. Christianity, since its origins, has always tried to teach us how important the idea of forgiveness is. We are told to forgive always those who have offended us, whether they deserve it or not, we must not seek revenge. But it is curious how since its origins, Christianity has been obsessed with the idea of punishment and vengeance. We just have to go to the book of genesis and check the chapters two and three, the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve are banished from the Garden of Eden after eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge. God did not even think about forgive them, they were directly expelled forever without any chance to redeem themselves. God takes revenge but we are told to do just the contrary, this is rather contradictory. We must avoid any impure act if we do not want to end in hell, so what about the forgiveness? We cannot do something that the teachers themselves were not even able to.
“The attitude of the speaker himself is to be understood as a reflection of God's attitude. By showing the speaker of the poem acting in a way reminiscent of God, Blake is showing God to be not a god of love but a cruel god and is thus criticizing the commonly held idea of God.”
“The very snake, it seems, that according to the Bible tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden to disobey God and eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, leads to Adam and Eve being cast out of paradise. In Genesis the serpent is described as the craftiest of God’s creatures, though tradition later made it into the Devil. In the poem, the poison tree of the speaker’s hatred stands in a hellish inversion of Eden, in a world governed by evil.” 

“Here, the garden is also a symbol of whatever grows from our actions, whatever view of reality we nurture, and becomes our habitual perspective. This reminds me of the opening of the Buddhist text, “The Dhammapada”: “We are what we think… With our thoughts we make the world.” Blake forces us to ask what kind of garden we’re planting each day with our thoughts, words and deeds. What blossoms at the center: a poison tree or a tree of life?” 
We can say we all have our own garden. It is something we are always feeding and molding in our way.  We are the ones responsible of every action we take. Therefore, we must know when we are dangerously approaching an attitude which could favour the growing of something poisonous. Our garden is not something that only affects to us, we must think of if as something which forms part of a whole. Only thinking that way we could someday be able to change the world. Nevertheless, the non existence of evil and poisonous gardens is just an utopia. Hatred, revenge, suffering have always being in our lives and it will not just disappear. The human being is a cruel animal, and that is something that, unfortunately, we cannot change.
“Blake called the original draft of "A Poison Tree" "Christian Forbearance," suggesting that what is meant to appear as a gentle attitude is often a mask for disdain and anger. Furthermore, Blake believed that attitudes of piety that Christians were taught to maintain actually led to hypocrisy, causing people to pretend to be friendly and accepting when they were not. The righteousness that the conventional religion prescribed, Blake believed, allowed people to hide evil intent and to perform evil deeds, such as stifling the healthy growth of children, under the cover of appearing virtuous”

The title of the original draft gives us a great clue about one of the topics of the poem. We are talking here about the nonsense that “to turn the other cheek” and being friendly in the outside whilst we are blinded by your wrath in the inside is. It really makes no sense to hide your feelings if you are only hurting yourself. The only thing you can achieve by teaching this is to be at risk of exploding and therefore, to be an actual threat to society.
This kind of education does nothing but to encourage people to be more hypocritical. Every religion should be based mainly in sincerity towards the others, that could be the only way to achieve some positive result.
We are all surprised when we see in the news people talking about a murderer, “He always seemed a normal person, so kind and formal” but what that person has experienced is, in fact, an explosion of wrath as in the poem. People who does not show their feelings during a long time usually will have some kind of psychological problem later in life. Repression is a very dangerous thing. Unbearable situations can sometimes trigger madness. We all must be aware of this.

Christian Forgiveness, What would Jesus do?

Given the importance of the religious meaning that we can extract from the poem, we are going to analyze the principles regarding Christian Forgiveness in order to better understand what is Blake criticizing.

To do so, we will make use of the advices given in a web which is intended to guide and teach the Christian prayer in order to “develop the moment-by-moment prayer life that God desires for you to experience”

“Defining Christian forgiveness is done with words and actions. The word “forgive” is a grace word in the English, as well as the Greek, meaning “to give or to grant.” The meaning is “to remit a debt, to give up resentment or claim for requital, or to pardon an offense.” 

“Christian forgiveness also encompasses action. Our confession with God involves us seeing our sins as He sees it, bringing God’s forgiveness. When we sin against others, we sin against God. For this reason, we ask God to forgive us of our sins, but we must also forgive our fellow man.”

“But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong” (1 John 1:9).

“What guides Christian forgiveness if an offender is not willing to repent, when the victim has done nothing wrong? The Lord commands us to forgive, releasing the offense and the offender to Him. This is done in prayer to the Lord. God recognizes these situations with this Scripture.”

“Dear friends, never avenge yourselves. Leave that to God. For it is written, ‘I will take vengeance; I will repay those who deserve it,’ says the Lord” (Romans 12:19). 
As we can see, this is completely contradictory. We are told to forgive those who offend us or sin against us keeping all our wrath and hatred within us. But on the other side, it says that although we sin against other people, we can always confess what we have done and everything will be fine again.
What comes next is even more contradictory. We have been told not to seek revenge, always forgive, but then we are told that God will take care of those who deserve a punishment. There is no way to understand it. God is the great example we are supposed to follow, he is compassionate , he will always forgive us if we confess (therefore we could live our lives killing and stealing for example and just by confessing it we would be forgiven), but then we find out that God himself is the supreme judge that will decide who will be punished.

What if the person deserve punishment but has decided to confess his/her sins to avoid it?

If we were actually following the example of God, we would have to punish those who deserve it (or at least those who we think they do) and forgiving every single person who confessed his/her sins.

“When we have been wronged, and know we did nothing to deserve harsh treatment from the offender, we normally begin to think of retaliation. Retaliation or revenge is not the right course of action. We no longer dwell on the offense when we relinquish forgiveness, allowing God to take care of the vengeance in a fair, just, and appropriate manner.”
If retaliation “is not the right course of action”, how come God is the first in using retaliation to take care of sinners?
What we are actually told here is that we must not be worried if somebody does something bad to us because God will take care of him. If we think that way, we are putting our hope in a future vengeance carried out by God. No matter how religion tries to hide it, it itself is based on vengeance, So, how can we trust in such contradictory principles?

“Steps to Christian Forgiveness"

-We recognize that we are sinners in need of forgiveness.
-We make the choice to forgive others.
-We believe and experience Christ’s loving forgiveness in our lives.
-Christ helps us to overcome negative thoughts that are blocking our ability to forgive.
-The Holy Spirit empowers us with the right attitude to forgive those who have hurt us.
-Trust that God will judge all the wrongs in the world.
-When struggling with forgiving others, talk with someone you respect and trust to give you wise counsel, such as your pastor or friend.”

It is interesting to read the last step, “talk with someone you respect and trust “, it instantly reminds us of Blake's poem, where instead of talking with the person you should to (the foe) to fix the problem, you just ignore him and turn to your friends, leaving in God's hand the decision of whether to punish the foe or not.

God's wrath

“in Mark 3:29 Jesus says, “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.” This is a startling statement. It rules out all those thoughts of universalism that say, even if there is a hell, one day it will be emptied after people have suffered long enough. No. That is not what Jesus said. He said that there is sin for which there will never be forgiveness. There are people who will never be saved. They are eternally lost.” 

“After the teaching of Jesus, the apostle Paul put the eternity of God’s wrath this way in 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9:

The Lord Jesus [will be] revealed from heaven with his mighty angels 8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.” (19)
Here we have another great contradiction. While Jesus says that we would be all forgiven is we confess, there seems to be some kind of sins that have no forgiveness. So, God is a vengeful being who will make those people suffer forever, they have no chance to redeem themselves but we are told to forgive always other people no matter what they do to us. How could not be the Christian prayer confused? If we were to follow this steps we would have to watch out for every single action we take so we do not accidentally commit one of these unforgivable sins, we would have to commit only those which are “forgivable” in order to avoid God's eternal wrath. But, of course, we must forgive every insult we receive , everything can be forgiven is we are the ones who get offended. It will come as a great relief to think that these people will suffer God's wrath forever.

Personal Opinion

At first, I did not notice how much could mean this poem. But after I read it over and over again I started to find out the richness and complexity which it is composed of. At first glance it seemed quite simple to me, but I was completely wrong. The great number of interpretations, the useful moral lessons you can extract from it, the ideas expressed by the author and the fact that you can always find new hidden meanings makes this poem a great example of how a short poem could be even more meaningful and complicated than other ones with much more extension. It is simply amazing to see how many things can be said without actually mention them.