Oedipus the King Summary

How It All Goes Down
King Oedipus, aware that a terrible curse has befallen Thebes, sends his brother-in-law, Creon, to seek the advice of Apollo. Creon informs Oedipus that the curse will be lifted if the murderer of Laius, the former king, is found and prosecuted. Laius was murdered many years ago at a crossroads.

Oedipus dedicates himself to the discovery and prosecution of Laius’s murderer. Oedipus subjects a series of unwilling citizens to questioning, including a blind prophet. Teiresias, the blind prophet, informs Oedipus that Oedipus himself killed Laius. This news really bothers Oedipus, but his wife Jocasta tells him not to believe in prophets, they've been wrong before. As an example, she tells Oedipus about how she and King Laius had a son who was prophesied to kill Laius and sleep with her. Well, she and Laius had the child killed, so obviously that prophecy didn't come true, right?

Jocasta's story doesn't comfort Oedipus. As a child, an old man told Oedipus that he was adopted, and that he would eventually kill his biological father and sleep with his biological mother. Not to mention, Oedipus once killed a man at a crossroads, which sounds a lot like the way Laius died.

Jocasta urges Oedipus not to look into the past any further, but he stubbornly ignores her. Oedipus goes on to question a messenger and a shepherd, both of whom have information about how Oedipus was abandoned as an infant and adopted by a new family. In a moment of insight, Jocasta realizes that she is Oedipus’s mother and that Laius was his father. Horrified at what has happened, she kills herself. Shortly thereafter, Oedipus, too, realizes that he was Laius’s murder and that he’s been married to (and having children with) his mother. In horror and despair, he gouges his eyes out and is exiled from Thebes.

Oedipus the King Themes

Oedipus the King Theme of Fate and Free Will

A central theme of the Oedipus the King is the tension between individual action and fate. While free choices, such as Oedipus’s decision to pursue knowledge of his identity, are significant, fate is responsible for Oedipus’s incest and many of the other most critical and devastating events of the play. By elevating the importance of fate, Sophocles suggests that characters cannot be fully responsible for their actions. It becomes difficult, for example, to blame Oedipus for marrying mother given his ignorance.


Oedipus the King Theme of Wisdom and Knowledge

In Oedipus the King, Oedipus is a seeker of knowledge and truth. He struggles to uncover Laius’s murder and his own identity, despite numerous warnings that he should leave the truth alone. His pursuit of knowledge and truth, however, results in ruin as Oedipus uncovers his destiny, which he was better off not knowing. This suggests that knowledge is futile and limited in its ability to bring happiness to those who seek it.


Oedipus the King Theme of Determination

Determination is one of Oedipus's and his mother's primary character traits. Despite the important role of fate in the lives of the characters, Oedipus and Jocasta are all driven, at times stubbornly, to pursue their goals. Determination in Oedipus the King is linked to hubris and proves less an asset than a flaw to the characters who possess it.


Oedipus the King Theme of Power

Power both corrupts and metaphorically blinds characters in the Oedipus the King. As a ruler, Oedipus is arrogant, unperceptive, and downright mean to people around him. Assuming other characters are trying to steal his power, Oedipus doesn't listen to their wisdom.


Oedipus the King Theme of Memory and the Past

Memories of the past have a complex impact on the characters in Oedipus the King. One message in this play is that delving too far into the past – as Oedipus does against the warnings of nearly everyone around him – is dangerous and self-injuring.

Hamlet Summary

How It All Goes Down
Welcome to Elsinore, Denmark, land of a recently deceased King who likes to chill out in ghost form at night on the castle battlements. He has reason to be upset, though, since the new King Claudius, husband of Queen Gertrude, happens to be his own brother. (Must make family holidays complicated.) Claudius has problems, too: Norway's Prince Fortinbras has war on the brain, and his new stepson, Hamlet, is being a bit of a PITA about things, mostly because his mother (Gertrude) waited about two seconds to get married after his father died.

Hamlet's bud Horatio tells Hamlet about the ghost and arranges a meeting. The ghost claims to be his father's spirit, proving it by telling Hamlet that Claudius is the man who murdered his father by pouring poison in his ear while he (Old Hamlet) was snoozing in his garden—and then ordering his son to take revenge. Great, Dad.

Game on. Hamlet's master plan involves him putting on an "antic disposition" (acting like a madman, or a clown). Sure enough, the next time we hear about Hamlet, his girlfriend Ophelia declares that Hamlet is crazy. Polonius brings the news to the King, and they decide to spy on the youngsters to figure out if Ophelia is the source of Hamlet's "madness." Meanwhile, some Danish ambassadors return from Norway with the good news that there isn't going to be a war, after all.

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two childhood pals of Hamlet and Horatio. The King and Queen have called them to Elsinore to spy on Hamlet and find out why he's gone mad. While the duo fails to do this, some players (actors) come into town. Hamlet commissions them to perform a play in which a king is murdered in the same way Claudius murdered Hamlet's father. Hamlet plans to watch Claudius's reaction to see if the ghost is telling the truth.

The plan's in motion, and Hamlet delivers the big "to be or not to be" speech about suicide. Instead, he decides to act all creepy and gross with Ophelia before watching Claudius all but stand up and shout that he's guilty. Hamlet decides to kill him, obviously, but then … doesn't. Instead, he ends up accidentally killing Polonius, Ophelia's dad. In front of his mom. Claudius sends Hamlet off to England, but on the way, Hamlet sees Prince Fortinbras of Norway marching across the land to fight for some lost territories. That's all the inspiration he needs to head back to Denmark to kill Claudius.

Back at the castle, Ophelia has cracked. Meanwhile, her bro Laertes is super pissed at Hamlet (crazy sister; dead father), so Claudius convinces him to stage a "friendly" duel and kill the Prince by using a sharpened rather than a blunt sword. With some poison as backup.

The next thing we know, Ophelia is dead, possibly by suicide, which means she doesn't even get a nice burial. There's a big scene between Hamlet and Laertes when Hamlet randomly stumbles on this funeral, and then Hamlet gets Horatio up to speed on his return: on the boat to England, Hamlet opened the letter that his companions Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were carrying and found that it carried instructions to have him (Hamlet) killed. Naturally, Hamlet altered the letter to say "Please kill Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, thanks," and escaped on a pirate ship back to Denmark.

Hope you brought your rain gear, because this last scene is going to be a bloodbath. During the friendly duel between Hamlet and Laertes, everything goes according to Claudius's evil plan until, uh oh, Gertrude drinks the poisoned wine. Meanwhile, Laertes cuts Hamlet with the poisoned sword, and Hamlet, ending up with Laertes's sword, wounds him back. Dying, Laertes yells out, "It's all Claudius's fault!" So, Hamlet stabs Claudius with the poisoned sword and makes him drink the poisoned wine. Bloodbath complete.

Well, except that Horatio's feeling left out and wants to kill himself too but Hamlet says that it's his job to tell Hamlet's story. Just then, Fortinbras of Norway walks in, steps over the blood and guts and bodies strewn out all over the floor, and then helps himself to the Danish throne. At least someone gets a happy ending!

Hamlet Themes

Hamlet Theme of Madness

Obfuscating insanity —uh, faking madness to throw people off—is one of the oldest tricks in the book. In Hamlet, Shakespeare takes it up a notch: does Hamlet truly go "mad," or is the cuckoo-talk, like the play itself, all an act? And if madness is a form of theatricality (maybe with some "method" in it, as Polonius says) —does that mean that all actors are crazy?


Hamlet Theme of Revenge

Ghosts, perverse family drama, and a vow of revenge: Hamlet is all geared up to be a traditional bloody revenge play… and then it grinds abruptly to a halt. The play isn't about Hamlet's ultimately successful vengeance for his father's murder at all—that's taken care of in about two seconds during Act 5. Instead, most of the play is concerned with Hamlet's inner struggle to take action. Our point? The play is a lot more interested in calling into question the validity and usefulness of revenge than in satisfying the audience's bloodlust—although, sure, it does that too. Shakespeare had a theater to fill, after all


Hamlet Theme of Mortality

Hamlet may talk—and talk, and talk—about suicide, but what he's really concerned with is mortality, and the fact that the living world is made of death and decay. (Yeah, we know that life looks pretty grim when you put it that way. Sorry.). From Hamlet's initial confrontation with a dead man's ghost to the final bloodbath, the play is trying to come to grips with just this problem: if we all die eventually, then does it really matter who kills us?


Hamlet Theme of Religion

For a play about incest and murder, Hamlet registers many of the 16th century's religious anxieties, like the effects of the Protestant Reformation on Christian ideas about mortality and the afterlife. And it also seems to be in basic conflict with itself: how can a play about murder, suicide, and revenge square with Christian notions of acceptance, Providence, and forgiveness? Well, maybe they can't—and maybe that's why Hamlet drags his feet for so long.


Hamlet Theme of Art and Culture

You know how all of Stephen King's books are about writers? Or how an unlikely number of movies have writer characters? Sometimes people take the advice to write what you know pretty literally—like Shakespeare, who filled Hamlet with self-conscious references to the workings of the theater. But it's not just for lack of other material. Hamlet is self-reflexive: it constantly draws attention to the fact that it's a play. By taking on various theatrical roles, like "antic" or "revenge hero," Hamlet is pushing us to ask just how much of our identity is based on performance. Have you ever used a line from a movie as a Facebook status? Or quoted a song when a conversation gets a little too real? Then you know what we're talking about.


Hamlet Theme of Lies and Deceit

For someone who hates deception, Hamlet sure finds himself coming up with a lot of lies. Hamlet depicts a seamy political world, where deception is a necessary part of life and political "spin" rules the day. In other words, it's a lot like our world—and like pretty much every political court or congress in history. No wonder directors seem to think it's infinitely adaptable: lies and deceit aren't limited to one time or place.


Hamlet Theme of Sex

Hamlet is a perv. Really. Oh, not the kind of perv who goes around doing gross stuff—as far as we can tell, Hamlet isn't actually interested in girls at all—but the kind who just can't stop thinking about other people's sex lives. Including (especially) his mom's. The young prince is disgusted by his aging mother's sexual appetite, which eventually becomes the way he feels about all women in general. According to Hamlet, female sexuality makes the entire world seem like an "unweeded garden: in other words, it's associated with deception, sin, and a fallen world. No wonder he can't lay off the dirty jokes.


Hamlet Theme of Gender

"Frailty, thy name is woman" (1.2.6)—but Hamlet's men are pillars of stability and constancy, right? Right?? Well, maybe not. But Hamlet's attitude toward women is definitely sexist, and it stems from his disgust at his mother's sexuality and seeming unfaithfulness to his dead father. But the play doesn't seem to agree. Hamlet's mother's final guilt is left ambiguous, and we just end up feeling really bad about Ophelia. Hamlet's attitude toward women reveals more about him (and maybe men in general) than it does about women's true nature.


Hamlet Theme of Family

Blood is thicker than water, which is easy to see when it's spilled all over the floor at the end of the play. Hamlet dwells on issues of incest and revenge, both of which just might be taking the familial bond a little too far. You shouldn't have sex with your family—pretty much everyone can get behind that—but maybe, Hamlet says, you shouldn't be murdering for them, either. So, what's left? Normal families? Nah. This is Shakespearean tragedy; keep looking.

Doctor Faustus Summary

How It All Goes Down
Doctor Faustus sits in his study, trying to decide what he should become an expert in. Theology? Nah. Medicine? Nope. Law? As if. How boring. How pointless.

How about… magic? That sounds downright delightful. So it's time for Faustus to have a chat with renowned magicians Valdes and Cornelius—they'll know the ins and outs of the magical trade. His new teachers give him the scoop and it's time for Faustus to get his magical groove on, all on his own.

For his first trick, he calls the devil Mephistopheles (uh, does anyone else think this is the baddest of bad ideas?) and asks ol' Meph to be his servant. But Mephistopheles serves Lucifer first and foremost, so Faustus makes Lucifer an offer he can't refuse: he will sell his soul to the devil himself in exchange for twenty-four years of life with Mephistopheles at his beck and call. Okay, remember what we said about calling Mephistopheles being the baddest of bad ideas? We were wrong. This idea is way worse.

Especially when Lucifer is all, yeah that sounds awesome. He agrees to Faustus's bargain as long as he signs his soul away in a document written and signed in his blood, which Faustus promptly produces. We're thinking maybe he should have pursued that law degree after all…

Meanwhile, similar deals with the devil are going down among the town's peasants. Faustus's servant, Wagner, has already procured his own "devil familiar" in the form of an apprentice named Robin; now Robin and his friend Dick try their hand at conjuring, with free booze as their goal. Boys.

Back to the main plot: Faustus is starting to have second thoughts about this whole selling-his-soul-to-Satan shebang, so he considers repenting. He's even got a Good Angel and a Bad Angel to try and convince him one way or the other. But the devils that surround Faustus insist that he's already too far gone down the road to damnation, so they distract him with talk of astrology and a show put on by the Seven Deadly Sins.

Plus they woo him with travel. Mephistopheles takes Faustus on a wild chariot ride through the heavens and around the globe, finally stopping in Rome, where Pope Adrian is about to pass judgment on a rival German pope named Bruno. Faustus saves Bruno (he has a soft spot for Germans) and spirits him back to Germany, then torments the Pope by stealing his dishes and food during a feast. Not cool dude.

Meanwhile, Robin and Dick stole a cup from their local tavern and then called on Mephistopheles to protect them. Annoyed, he turns them into an ape and a dog (certainly not worth the booze).

Now in Germany, Faustus gets props from the Emperor for saving Bruno. In turn, Faustus impresses the Emperor with a few magic trucks, including putting horns on the head of a nearby naysayer, Benvolio. Enraged by his humiliation, Benvolio enlists his friends Martino and Frederick to help him kill Faustus in an ambush. Much to their dismay, after they chop Faustus's head off, he is very much undead and has his devil cronies drag Benvolio and crew through the mud. That'll teach 'em.

Back in Jolly Old England, Faustus sells an enchanted horse to a horse dealer. When the man rides his new horse over the water, it changes into a bale of hay. Whoops. As it turns out, the horse dealer is not the only townsperson Faustus has wronged.

Robin, Dick, and a dude named Carter are also pretty peeved at the magician, so they meet up in a tavern to plan their revenge. They demand to see Faustus while he's hanging with the Duke and Duchess of Vanholt, for whom he's produced a castle in the air and grapes out of season. It's not a good time for Faustus to handle his bitter buddies, so he charms them into silence before they can call him out for any wrong-doing.

Now nearing the end of his life, Faustus meets an Old Man (an allegorical figure) who counsels him to repent and turn to God once again. Faustus sends Mephistopheles to torment the Old Man, which is not exactly the nice-guy way to go.

On Faustus's last day of life, he confesses all his bad deeds to a group of scholars, who promise to pray for the guy as he meets his end. Faustus's Good and Bad Angels appear and show him a glimpse of heaven and hell. Terrified of Hell, Faustus longs for time to stop, or for his soul to be mortal so that he will not have to suffer eternally. But the clock strikes twelve and the devils who have followed him through life enter Faustus's study to claim his soul. Yikes.

The next morning, the scholars find his body torn to pieces (yuck), and they decide to give him a proper burial. After all, even though he was a major sinner, he was a promising scholar in his day. Finally, the Chorus ends the play by interpreting Faustus's story as a warning to the wise about the dangers of forbidden fruit. In other words, don't sell your soul to the devil because, you know, he's going to come collect at some point.

Doctor Faustus Themes

Doctor Faustus Theme of Philosophical Viewpoints: Predestination

Does man have a choice about whether or not he will reach heaven? Or is the fate of his soul decided from the get-go, with him powerless to change it? At first, it seems like Doctor Faustus is clearly in the latter camp. Our good-turned-bad doctor thinks he's damned no matter what he does. But as the play goes on, Faustus wavers, wondering if he still has time to repent, and if his sin is forgivable. The play never comes down on one or the other side of the debate, sometimes portraying Faustus's fall as his own choice, at other times letting him off the hook. In the end though, it just might be a little bit of both. Faustus's fall has been caused by his choice to believe that he's damned. That causes him to refuse to repent, and refusing to repent is the one sin that's truly unforgivable.


Doctor Faustus Theme of Religion

At the beginning of Doctor Faustus, the not-so-good doctor thinks the study of religion is a plain old waste of time. But we're betting that by the end of it, he'll be singing a different tune altogether. See, through all his conjuring exploits and exotic travels, Faustus just can't escape the subject of religion. He finds himself questioning the nature of hell and salvation, and even winds up smack dab in the middle of the papal court, where he does his fair share of mocking the Catholic church. Yet while religion follows him, step-by-step on his slow journey to eternal damnation, we can't help but think that Faustus never really gets just how important religion really is in his life, or the role it will eventually play in the fate of his soul.


Doctor Faustus Theme of Sin

Just as Faustus refuses to take religious issues seriously, he laughs at the parade of the Seven Deadly Sins in Act 2, Scene 3 of Doctor Faustus. But really, buddy, they're no laughing matter, which becomes all the more clear when the Sins start to tell Dr. F a bit more about themselves. This parade of sins should be a warning to Faustus to repent, but he has already decided he'd rather serve the devil than God, all so he can grab himself some wealth and power before his soul hits the road.


Doctor Faustus Theme of The Supernatural

Faustus hands over his soul for the ability to perform magic. Although he imagines using magic to make himself as powerful as a god and as wealthy as a king, when it comes right down to it Faustus's magic often amounts to little more than fancy tricks. He uses it to make the images of dead people appear in order to amuse himself and his friends, or to humiliate people, including peasants who have done nothing to harm him. And the townsfolk who use magic do silly things like steal dishes and bogart some booze. In the end, magic in Doctor Faustus, however incredible, appears to be no more useful than the man who wields it.


Doctor Faustus Theme of Wisdom and Knowledge

At the beginning of Doctor Faustus, Faustus takes a closer look at the collected wisdom of centuries of scholarship and has only this to say: codswallop! Instead, he turns to magic not only for the power and wealth it can bring him, but also because of the forbidden knowledge it promises to reveal to him. In the end, Faustus doesn't care about the knowledge itself—just what it can do for him, and that kind of thinking is exactly what winds him up in a pact with Lucifer. So while Faustus may be knowledgeable, the play suggests, he's certainly not wise.


Doctor Faustus Theme of Cunning and Cleverness

Despite being a skilled scholar, rocking debates with his buds, and having some serious chops in the medicine world, Faustus really wants to be known as a cunning magician. Yep, a magician. Hey, who are we to judge his dream? And lo and behold, when he gets that moto working, he becomes powerful, rich, and famous right quick. Yet the ability of simple peasants like Robin and Dick to read and practice from Faustus's magic books suggests that Faustus's skills might not be as rare and special as he likes to think. After his death, Faustus is remembered by the Scholars not for his magical powers and clever tricks, but for the very scholarly learning he rejected as unworthy of him at the beginning of Doctor Faustus.


Doctor Faustus Theme of Wealth

As Faustus does the whole should-he-or-shouldn't-he-deal-with-the-devil calculation (here's an idea, Faustus: you shouldn't), the wealth that such a deal can bring him factors considerably into his fuzzy math. He knows that, with Mephistopheles's help, he can get his grubby hands on the treasures of exotic places like India, Asia, and the Americas. Plus, he could use his considerable power to cheat peasants out of their money and possessions. Beyond demonstrating the cravenness of his character, Faustus's desire for wealth and his willingness to sell his soul to the devil shows us that in Doctor Faustus wealth and salvation don't exactly go hand in hand.


Doctor Faustus Theme of Power

A big motivator for Faustus's handing his soul over to the devil is his that he's jonesing for some power, big time. But here's the rub: in order to gain that power, Faustus has to give it all away—to Lucifer. Ultimately, the power Faustus dreams of could never be his. The power to rule not just men but all of creation belongs only to God in the world of Doctor Faustus. But the not-so-good doctor is not the only one in the play who has such high ambitions. Pope Adrian, too, uses his power to make all the world "stoop" (3.1.158). And we know that Lucifer fell from heaven because of his lust for power. So the Pope and Faustus are probably destined to wind up right where Lucifer is—in hell.

Poison Tree analysis

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. (6), (5)

“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” (13) 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”(13)
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. (6), (5)

“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.”(11)

“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.” (14)

“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?” (14)

We can say we all have our own garden. It is something we are always feeding and molding in our way. (14) 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” (11)

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”(17)

“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.” (18)

“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.” (18)

“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). (18)

“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.”(18)

“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). (18)


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.”(18)

If retaliation “is not the right course of action”(18), 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.” (18)

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.” (19)

“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.