The True Meaning Of Deep...Poetry, and Flowers.

My job was to explain the meaning of a few poems in something as simple as an essay. One poem was called The Fly, another named The Sick Rose. Both poems were written by William Blake and have a meaning deeper than the words on the pages. There were more poems, but these were the ones that I found to be most intriguing to me. This was the outcome of my major project:

   In The Fly, the main character is the fly. He was swatted and killed by a senseless hand. The narrator of the poem The Fly is a man who is deep in thought. At the very moment he decided to kill this fly, he started to wonder about his life compared to the fly's life. He did not regret killing the fly, but the thought was still there swimming around in his head. The tone of this poem is serious. Someone is coming to a sudden realization about life and death. It doesn't necessarily scare them, but it makes them think just a little bit harder about their life and the way it could end at any possible second.

   The importance of life and death is the main theme of the poem. By comparing the fly's life to the narrator's life, the poem shows how a fly's life is different from that of a human. The fly doesn't completely comprehend death and what it means to live or to die; therefore, whether or not the fly dies simply does not matter. To the fly, death is of little consequence. The man merely wonders if he values life more than the fly, for the fly has less knowledge of it than he. Also, the narrator compares the fly to being happy and wonders if he can still be as happy as the fly while knowing that one day he will die.

   The main subject of the poem The Sick Rose is the rose. It was destroyed over night and has become ill in a metaphorical sense. Something strange has happened in order for the rose to be struck with such affliction. The tone of this poem is sad and broken. Nothing happy or exciting ever results from sickness. The narrator of the poem is someone or something informing the rose that it is not well. 

   The main theme of this poem is love. Roses are a symbol of love, and this poem shows how a love was broken by something so small. The "invisible worm" resembles Satan, which in turn is the symbol of evil. Evil had taken over and contributed to the hurting rose. The sickness is most likely not physical, but it's the mental pain that most people in the world have to suffer through. Evil stepped right in, found what the rose loved and needed the most, and destroyed it. Jealously also takes action, because the worm is secretly jealous of the rose. Evil lost its chance at love, so it went out of its way to sabotage for someone else what it could not have for itself.

Sometimes in life, it takes a simple poem with deep meaning to really get your brain going. These short poems sure did snap something in MY brain. I suggest reading more poetry. It's good for the soul.

Wishing there was more to say,

Emily Page.