“Desire” and “Hate” are have seemingly unrelated meanings. One means an intense longing or want, while the other means an intense dislike or distaste. However, when Robert Frost's “Fire and Ice” and William Blake's “A Poison Tree” take a closer look at what defines these two words, desire and hate are found to be interconnected. “Fire and Ice” discusses the ideas that the world will end from fire, and that it will end from ice. “A Poison Tree” examines the growth of a small seed of spite that grows into a malignant tree of evil thoughts which kills the foe, physically or mentally, by the end of the poem. In “Fire and Ice” and “A Poison Tree”, Frost and Blake make use of constrasting metaphors, references to nature, and allusions to the Bible to enhance the common themes of desire and hate.
In “Fire and Ice”, Robert Frost makes a clear distinction between desire and hate. The duality of each emotion and element is expressed when the speaker mentions “[having] tasted desire” and “[holding] with those who favor fire” (3, 4), as well as “ [knowing] enough about hate to say that for destruction ice [would do]” (6, 7). In “A Poison Tree” by William Blake, the speaker describes a tree of hate grown from a smaller incident. Blake contrasts life and death as well as the title through the the tree of hate. The place where the tree of hate was grown is also the resting place of the speaker's foe, which shows the opposing ideas of life and death. The title is an ironic juxtaposition of the tree, a symbol of vitality and life, and poison, a symbol of death and ailments.
Frost also references the Bible through the idea of Armageddon. Parts of the Old Testament as well as the New Testament mention “God's Wrath” in various forms, such as h...
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... and body of many, bringing destruction along with it. Hate, on the other hand, is portrayed as a initally passive and emotionless feeling that slowly crystalizes the heart, until the whole thing freezes over and shatters, also bringing destruction along with it. These two poems, “Fire and Ice” and “A Poison Tree” suggest that hate and desire are two opposite, yet inseperatable emotions. Where one goes, the other tends to follow. Desire and hate start off small, then escalate quickly. If the problem is addressed earlier on, the whole situtation could be avoided. It starts with every single person gradually addressing their own negative thoughts and ideas. It is the duty of the indiviual to take a step back to think, then address the problem, or else no one will notice it until these two monsters rear their ugly heads and destroy everyone and everything around it.
Each literary work portrays something different, leaving a unique impression on all who read that piece of writing. Some poems or stories make one feel happy, while others are more solemn. This has very much to do with what the author is talking about in his or her writing, leaving a bit of their heart and soul in the work. F. Scott Fitzgerald, when writing The Great Gatsby, wrote about the real world, yet he didn’t paint a rosy picture for the reader. The same can be said about T.S. Eliot, whose poem “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock,” presents his interpretation of hell. Both pieces of writing have many similarities, but the most similar of them all is the tone of each one.
When an emotion is believed to embody all that brings bliss, serenity, effervescence, and even benevolence, although one may believe its encompassing nature to allow for generalizations and existence virtually everywhere, surprisingly, directly outside the area love covers lies the very antithesis of love: hate, which in all its forms, has the potential to bring pain and destruction. Is it not for this very reason, this confusion, that suicide bombings and other acts of violence and devastation are committed in the name of love? In Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, the reader experiences this tenuity that is the line separating love and hate in many different forms and on many different levelsto the extent that the line between the two begins to blur and become indistinguishable. Seen through Ruth's incestuous love, Milkman and Hagar's relationship, and Guitar's love for African-Americans, if love causes destruction, that emotion is not true love; in essence, such destructive qualities of "love" only transpire when the illusion of love is discovered and reality characterizes the emotion to be a parasite of love, such as obsession or infatuation, something that resembles love but merely inflicts pain on the lover.
“For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck, For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop.” The men hanging to wither and rot for no reason other than ignorance, greed and prejudice. “A strange and bitter crop.”
I have always been of the belief that in order to truly love, hate must exist within the core of the relationship. Nowhere in modern fiction is this dictum examined more accurately than in the novel by James Cain, Mildred Pierce. Looking at the concept in a familial context, James Cain has created two well-developed characters, Mildred Pierce and her daughter, Veda, that not only emphasizes the nature of mother-daughter relationships, but looks at how love and hate permeates the very essence of the relationship. The Irish poet Thomas Moore once described the fascination of these violently fluctuating emotions, “When I loved you, I can’t but allow/ I had many an exquisite minute/ But the scorn that I feel for you now/ Hath even more luxury in it” (Tresidder 57).
Two of the many other emotions used in this piece are prejudice and hate. They are intertwined and effect each other in ways so noticeable to us that we tend to forget that they even exist at times. "From examining 'Romeo and Juliet,' it is evident that the play shows how prejudice leads to escalating violence" (Justin K.). This, to most people, is common knowledge especially in society today, where many actions are based on racism or sexism.
An important element that is displayed in both love and hate is motivation. An example of this is portrayed in “A Note on My Son’s Face,” as the author states, “I wanted that face to die, to be reborn in the face of a white child” (35,36). This line displays a level of prejudice towards what is hers. Derricotte battles intense feelings of wanting a white looking child amongst a world where not being grateful for what she has is seen as hatred towards her son. She looks at the face of her black child and is filled with animosity for what he looks like and what he will become. This is where the motivational factor comes into play, and where the lines of love and hate really become blurred. Does she hate her child because of how he looks? or Does she love her child because she wants him to become better than what he is destined for? She is motivated by love to want him to become better than what she believes is possible for him, yet she displays hate in the sense that she is hurting the child for what he is, and also for what he has no control over. According to Rempel this grandmother is displaying both intense feelings of love and hate. Loving what is hers, but hating what it will become. Therefore, this poem supports the theory that love and hate are
Frost is far more than the simple agrarian writer some claim him to be. He is deceptively simple at first glance, writing poetry that is easy to understand on an immediate, superficial level. Closer examination of his texts, however, reveal his thoughts on deeply troubling psychological states of living in a modern world. As bombs exploded and bodies piled up in the World Wars, people were forced to consider not only death, but the aspects of human nature that could allow such atrocities to occur. By using natural themes and images to present modernist concerns, Frost creates poetry that both soothes his readers and asks them to consider the true nature of the world and themselves.
The poem “A Poison Tree” by William Blake and the story, “The Cask of Amontillado” written by Edgar Allan Poe writes about revenge. Overall both the poem and the short story share how they developed the overall theme, and to express the act, each of the writings use dramatic irony and sensory
"An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind"(Gandhi) An eye for an eye, or revenge, has been a theme that has shown up in many literary pieces throughout history. Although revenge is a common theme in many literary pieces, the reason and outcome of the revenge is often very varied. In “A Poison Tree” by William Blake shows that wrath left unattended will cause more damage oneself and others, in this case resulting in death, as it grows and develops into a form of revenge. In “The Cone” by H.G. Wells there is also a theme of revenge brought about by the entrapment of emotions leading to a revengeful death but this death results in the seeker of revenge feeling remorse. This essay will compare how the murderers in both “A Poison Tree” and “The Cone” feel about the deaths they’ve caused and how their emotions affect the overall theme of the text as a whole.
Poetry is one of the more mysterious denizens of the literary world. A poem can be anything, from a three-lined poem known as a haiku to a giant epic poem like the “The Odyssey.” They can be rhyming or non-rhyming, long or short, sensible or nonsensical. Even lyrics in songs can be considered poetry, seeing as how they are rhyming and flow so well. The parameters for a poem are wide, the requirements few; but no matter what style or author you read, from Homer to Doctor Seuss, symbolism is the driving force behind it all. Symbolism is the reason for every piece of poetry written so far, even some of Doctor Seuss’s books. Countless words, thoughts, and ideas are used to convey symbolism. A flower, a tree, and even the color blue just to name a few. But one recurring piece of symbolism found throughout the literary world is the use of temperature. The warmth of the sun or a comforting smile, the cold of night or a dark hospital room, the use of temperature plays a part in many poems and plays its part well. But the part it plays can vary from writer to writer, poem to poem. The three major uses of temperatures though are to show the warmth of memory versus the harsh cold of reality, the warmness of comfort, and how warmth is used to show life and vitality while cold is used to signify harshness and cruelty.
Romanticism was both an artistic and intellectual movement geared essentially toward emphasizing nature’s subliminal aura, the individual’s expression of emotion and imagination, and ultimately a heightened sense of consciousness. Widely acknowledged for his contributions to Romanticism, English poet William Blake is considered to be one of the most influential poets of the nineteenth century. Blake, a visionary far beyond his years, was adamant in expressing his views on the cosmos; that one cannot simply have the good without experiencing the bad nor can one have the bad without experiencing the good. Near the end of the seventeen hundreds, Blake published two highly acclaimed works supporting his claim that in order for the world to function as it does, all things in the universe must have an opposite, or a contrast. He published his poem collection entitled “Songs of Innocence and of Experience” in 1794 and finished composing his book “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”, a few years prior to it. These two brilliant works exemplify exactly just how important a positive balance in the cosmos really is. William Black depicts good and evil in his poems with the use of the reference to joy and sorrow.
Burning hatred, an unconstrained and uncontrollable emotion. Hate can turn people insane and push them to the point of killing. Only after, the person realizes that what they have done is irreversible, and by then, it is too late. There are many forms of writing, in which emotion can be expressed, but the one that I find most effective, happens to be poetry. A Poison Tree by William Blake is the perfect poem. It explains how hatred grows until it becomes very dangerous.
The Bible has a large amount of stories about war and destruction. Some of the stories are historical writings, but not all. God of the bible is omniscient and God uses this to give humanity a unique look into our future. The stories of destruction that this paper will look at are some of the future visions given to humanity by God. The apocalyptic literature are the recorded visions given to believers and they are used to warn people of the impending doom of the world. The bible takes different approaches to the same topic in order to make the message fully know.
“Fire and Ice” is a poem that paints a bleak picture of the future in which there are two paths, fire and ice, that both lead to the end of the world. Frost uses language throughout the poem that appears to be simple, but is actually very effective at communicating deeper, insightful meanings. He connects fire and ice to desire and hate and creates multiple levels of complexity. For example, the simple passage “Some say the world will end in fire, / Some say in ice.” (“Fire and Ice” 1-2) introduces the two main symbols in the poem, but, at the same time, pulls the reader in because desire and hate are so personal and such a significant part of human nature. After the symbols are presented, the narrator involves himself or herself in the poem by saying “From what I’ve tasted of desire / I hold with those who favor fire.” (“Fire and Ice” 3-4). A clear decision is made here in favor of fire, implying that the narrator favors desire. Frost believes that the world will eventually be destroyed by destructive and negative human traits: desire, greed, and jealousy. Yet in Frost’s mind, these traits are still preferable to hate. This opinion is demonstrated by the narrator’s choice of fire. Frost prefers the heat of passion and fire to the ...
Desire means an intense longing or want, while hate means an intense dislike or distaste. However, when the reader examines Robert Frost's “Fire and Ice” and William Blake's “A Poison Tree”, they may possibly notice the fact that desire and hate are intertwined. “Fire and Ice” discusses the idea of the end of the world, while “A Poison Tree” looks at the end of a relationship. In “Fire and Ice” and “A Poison Tree”, Frost and Blake make use of contrast, metaphors, and Biblical illusions to illuminate the bond between desire and hate.