Anatomy of a Flower in The Sick Rose Essay

Anatomy of a Flower

The Sick Rose is an interesting poem written by William Blake in 1794. Many different analyses can be drawn about the meaning of it. The traditional interpretation of this complex poem tells the story of a woman who had a sexual relationship with a man, and this destroys her life. It can be deduced by four different interpretations, the formalist, the psychological, the archetypal and the biblical ones, which bring the readers to the same previous conclusion. It can also have different interpretations which have nothing to do with a relationship between men and women. It can be interpreted as an explanation of the cycle of life including life and death, as an explanation that all beauty will fade sometimes, as well as a complaint about the disease which circulated at the time and even a protestation against urbanisation.

The first analysis is that The Sick Rose is the story of a woman who had a sexual relationship with a man, and this particular fact destroyed her life. In the time Blake lived in, women had to be virgins before their weddings, and if a young woman wasnt a virgin when they were old enough to consider their future, they were a shame for their family, and never were married. This is how their lives were destroyed by pre-marital sexual relationships. The first line O Rose, thou art sick! (Blake, 104) gives us the first clue of the interpretation. To begin, the Rose is personified because a rose cannot be sick like a human being. The personification and the apostrophy to the flower also show the concern of the author for the sickness of the Rose. Secondly, the word Rose is written with a capital letter, which suggests that it is a first name of a woman. A Rose is also often the symbol of the feminine sex, and of the fragility of women. The second line, The invisible worm (Blake, 104), gives us also some good information about the nature of the roses disease. The worm can be seen as a phallic symbol in this poem, which refers to a man because of its shape. The word invisible refers to something hidden, something secret, because we cant see it. It can also be seen as something people dont see coming, as the destruction of her life. In the third line, That flies in the night (Blake, 104); the night suggests also something hidden. The night implies also sexual relationships that often take place at night. The fourth line, In the howling storm (Blake, 104), suggests as well sexual relationships. The storm represents the action, which is actually howling, because it is rough, shows the chaos of the relationship between the rose and the worm. Has found out thy bed (Blake, 104), another time, the bed suggests sexual relationships which take place in bed most of the time. The bed of a flower is the place where it grows, thus it suggests the emotional growth of the Rose and the fact that she went from a state of innocence to a state of experience. The verb found implies that the worm searched for the bed, or that the man wanted and seduced the Rose. Of crimson joy (Blake, 104) says that the girl was a virgin before the intrusion of the worm through the word crimson which suggest the color of blood, because at that time, the fact that a woman bled when she had her first relationship meant that she was a virgin. Joy proposes that the relationship was consensual, otherwise it would not have been pleasant, and Blake would not have employed this particular word. The sixth line, And his dark secret love (Blake, 104), also suggests the consensual relationship through the word love, but the fact that the love was dark and secret says that it was morally incorrect in society. This also states that the man is not her husband, because Blake says that it was a secret love. Then, the last line, Does thy life destroy (Blake, 104) clearly states that her life has been destroyed, and by knowing the other lines of the poem, we can conclude that her reputation has been destroyed because the sexual relationship has been discovered. The shape of the poem suggests also the negative side of the poem because the sentences are short and include many negative words like sick, night, howling, dark and destroy on very few lines.

There are some critics who argue about a possible allusion to The Scarlet Letter (http://www.eliteskills.com/c/12338), but since the poem was written in 1794 and the famous novel in 1850, we can exclude this hypothesis. On the other hand, the basic idea is good and the poem could have been inspired by it, since it talks about a girl who saw her life destroyed by adultery. The Rose could have been a woman who became pregnant and whose life was destroyed when people realized there was no father and excluded her from the community, as it was the practice in those times.

The second interpretation is the psychological or Freudian one. In Freudian psychology, the ego is the reality principle, the superego is the morality principle and the uncontrolled sexual instincts are the id. The ego is supposed to control the id in accordance with the superego. The Rose becomes the symbol of the feminine sexuality, because of its concave shape. The worm is once again the symbol of the male sexual organ because of its phallic shape. In the third line, the verb to fly suggests sexual action. The night is again a symbol of sexual desire, and of hidden thoughts. The howling storm implies the chaotic energy of the sexual desire. Then, with these conclusions, and the ones drawn by the Formalist analysis, the illness can be interpreted in another way. The disease becomes guilt, because the superego is punishing the ego for not controlling the id. Thus, the sexual relationship isnt necessarily discovered, and it is more the Rose who is punishing herself because she did something that is against societys principles but also because she appreciated it.

Another interpretation of this poem can be made by the archetypal or Jungian interpretation. The rose is actually a symbol of completion, of achievement and of perfection. It is associated with paradise, beauty and represents the perfection for which the lover strives; it is a pure and spiritual symbol. The worm is the archetype of uncontrolled energies or desires. It represents the unconscious, passions, sensuality and knowledge. Thus, it also represents a destructive energy for the victim, death or decay and forces that destroy rather than perpetuate life. The night represents another time death or evil in this interpretation. The unknown is represented by the dark secret love, which suggests another time that the Rose was a virgin before the worm came into her bed. In this interpretation, the garden is a symbol of nature in order, of consciousness. It also suggests paradise, beauty and innocence. The garden is the place where the rose grows, and of course, if there is a howling storm, the garden is destroyed. The garden then represents the life of the Rose and the howling storm is the action of the worm.

The fourth interpretation of this poem can be done by looking at the Bible. In this analysis, the Rose become Eve and the worm refers to the snake, because of its shape, which corrupted Eve. The snake is, in the Bible, the Evil which corrupted Eve and leads her to eat the forbidden fruit. Then, the illness can be interpreted as the fact that Eve and Adam were expelled from Eden. A rose grows in a garden, and this refers once again to the Garden of Eden. This interpretation also makes sense because the poem is part of The Songs of Experience by Blake. In each of these poems, there is a state of purity or inexperience which changes to become a state of experience. This is exactly what happens with Eve and Adam, who, when they ate the forbidden fruit, immediately covered their nudity. Then, the destruction that is mentioned in the poem is the spiritual destruction of Eve. The moral is more obvious in this analysis of the poem, because it refers to the religious belief. From this, the poem about the complexity of love and stands that love has negative consequences when it is done within the limits of marriage.

The Sick Rose can also refer to human life. In the first stanza, the Rose is destroyed by the invisible worm (Blake, 104) and by the howling storm (Blake, 104) showing how fragile a rose is. In this way, the rose can be human life. The howling storm (Blake, 104) can also refer to the human life which was, for most of the population at the time of Blake, like a storm, unpredictable and hard to experience. I explained previously how the Rose can be referred to as a human being and how the Rose was personified, but, in this analysis, we can take it in a larger way and let the rose be all human lives. We can also assume than, as in English poetry, night is a strong symbol of death, it is the case here. Then, the poem can refer to human death. The crimson joy (Blake, 104) refers to human blood by its colour, but it is also what maintains life in all human as the sap in all plants. If the worm has found the bed of crimson joy (Blake, 104) of the Rose, it means that Death has found the life of Rose and will destroy it. Then, the poet talks about the dark secret love of the worm. It refers to the thin line between life and death, as a relationship. It also refers to the obsession of all human beings for death which sometimes destroys their lives because they worry about it throughout their lives. In this way, the Rose can be not only human life but also the beauty of living this life. The first stanza refers to how life is fragile while the second one refers to how Death is unavoidable. But then, the two last lines can be interpreted as the fact that worrying about our death destroys our life. Thus, the moral of this poem is to appreciate the life we have and to not think about death because it is unavoidable; otherwise, it will destroy our lives.

We can also interpret this poem as an ode to beauty which will inevitably fade someday. The Rose has always been a symbol of beauty in English culture. Then the worm destroys it, and its symbolise perfectly the action of the time on a womans beauty. The time is also invisible which justifies the employment of this word to qualify the worm. The howling storm can symbolise the life of a person, which can be like a storm, as I mentioned previously. Then, the bed of the beauty is obviously her body, and the crimson joy can represent once again the human body, and blood, as blood is a symbol of life. Then, the dark secret love may be the time passing, as it slowly causes the death of all human beings, and because dark represents death. And the last line stands by itself saying that when a womans beauty is destroyed, her life is also destroyed. (http://plagiarist.com/poetry/1852/comments/5/)

Some critics also argue that the poem The Sick Rose is about incurable diseases that were prevalent at the time, as STDs, particularly syphilis. Thus, the Rose is once again the symbol of a woman, who can be a married women infected by her unfaithful husband, or even a prostitute. The word sick can be interpreted literally and the Rose suffers from an illness. The invisible worm is the symbol of the male sexual organ. Then, the lines That flies in the night, In the howling storm (Blake, 104) represent very well the sexual action, because it often takes place at night, and it is rough, like a howling storm. Then, the bed and the crimson joy suggest once again a sexual relationship between the Rose and the worm, but the crimson also suggests human blood, which is the way people contract the illness. Then, the dark secret love (Blake, 104) suggests more obviously the fact that Blake is talking about a prostitute, otherwise, the love wouldnt be hidden and dark, but it can also be the fact that the husband is unfaithful to his wife and transmits this disease to her because of that. And the life is destroyed because this disease didnt have any cure at this time. (http://www.eliteskills.com/c/12338)

Another interpretation of this poem can be made by looking at Blakes political opinions. The Rose is the national emblem of Great Britain. It can then represent this beautiful country in which Blake lived. The illness can be the Industrial Revolution. It is well known that Blake took part in the romanticism movement, which stressed the importance of "nature" in art and language, in contrast to "monstrous" machines and factories (Wikipedia, Industrial Revolution). We see it really well in Blakes poems, such as The Chimney Sweeper or London. Then, it is possible this poem was also about the Industrial Revolution. Back to the poem, the worm is by its definition an animal that move through the soil. The Urbanisation, during the Industrial Revolution did the same thing at the time, as it changes the society and the physical aspect of the city as the worm turned over the soil. In the poem, the worm is invisible because people didnt realize that the Industrial Revolution had many negative effects, as Blake thought, and they encouraged it, and they moved more and more in the cities. The poet says that it flies in the night (Blake, 104) to represent the revolution that expanded more and more each day. The howling storm (Blake, 104) was the negative working conditions of the workers who after fought to obtain their rights were able to create the first unions. Then, the worm found the bed of the Rose, or more historically, Englishmen followed this new capitalist movement, and mentalities started to change in England. Therefore, the revolution is the worm, and it spread throughout Great Britain. Blake also qualifies the bed of crimson joy. In this case, it can represent the power of the company owners and the way they treated their employees. Blake wrote The Sick Rose in 1794, when the industrial revolution was just starting. He uses the word joy, because the population was glad and joyful to work in factories. But he also uses the word crimson, which has a negative connotation because it recalls the color of blood and, thus, suggests blood or murders, or in this case, almost mass executions. Then, he wrote And his dark secret love. Does thy life destroy (Blake, 104), which suggests the relationship between people and this new idea of the Industrial Revolution which appeared to the majority of the population to be very good, but, as Blake saw it, it would do more damage than good. (http://plagiarist.com/poetry/1852/comments/5/)

To conclude, there are other analyses that can be drawn by looking at this poem, but these are the most widespread. I personally think that the last one is one of the most interesting because

it stands against something, instead of just relating a story, like most of the ones where the Rose is a woman. There are also critics who think that this poem was about the vision Blake claimed to have of the day God would destroy the world, or even others that think that The Sick Rose was a complaint about the noise pollution around Blakes apartment at the time. They also say that the lover of the Rose is dead or that she became pregnant and her baby died. But these one are just derived from the first four analyses where the Rose is a woman who had sexual relationships with a man when she was unmarried. Then, the conclusions drawn are almost infinite, but I think that Blake didnt intend his poem to have so much meanings. However, since we do not know what he believed, we will never know which interpretation is the one Blake intended.

Works Cited

Blake, William. The Sick Rose. The Harbrace Anthology of Poetry 4th ed. Eds Jon C. Scott et al.

Toronto : Thompson, 2006. 104.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blake

http://plagiarist.com/poetry/1852/comments/5/

http://www.eliteskills.com/c/12338