Sick Rose and London Written by William Blake - Essay Example

? The “Sick rose” and the “London” were the poems written by William Blake. Both the poems are in the book named as “Songs of Experience” by poet himself. As the part of same book, they are related to each other in theme also. In sick rose; rose is known as symbol of beauty and worm as destroyer of beauty. The rose is sick and unaware of its condition. Similarly, rose as a symbol of love; love never recognizes the fact that it also dies with the time. The decaying of rose implies that the worm which is the cause of sickness of the rose lies in the plant of rose itself. Therefore, love has also an infectivity within itself which is ultimately the causes of its death. Worm can also be regarded as corruption that is polluting the society. Corruption itself is created by society. Also like infection present in the rose corruption also destroys the cause of its birth; that is society. In the poem “London”; corruption is a destroyer same as worm in the poem “Sick Rose”. In London poet William Blake is presenting a society which is dominated by dark forces like materialism. Poem is giving a negative image of society. Corruption is the same as infection that is present in the society and continuously harming it. Society itself has this infection just like rose plant had infection that lead to its death in the poem “Sick rose”. Society gets killed by infection of corruption. Same as rose is not aware of the situation and what is happening to it; people suffering from this infection of corruption do not know about their own situation; that they are being killed by the disease. Society just like rose is a beauty which is destroyed badly by the poison created by its own self. Book of experience was written in the time when there were revolutions regarding awareness rising. William Blake tried to make aware the people about the disease of corruption which was about to destroy them. 2. Poet Coleridge is very passionate about using symbolism in his poetry. All character names in Kubla Khan were taken from names of real persons and places associated to these characters. On reading the poem one feels that the poet has taken things from our world, take significance out of them and then placed them in his own world of fantasy. The character of Kubla Khan is a character which is struggling all over his life. With others and there is a fight within himself. Past lustful relations and cruelty of his ancestors is the major reason for this inner fight. In this fight there are some points where Kubla Khan feels to be trapped. This is represented by the walls and towers in the poem. Poets sketches Kubla Khan as king that can do anything with cruelty of ancestors present in his blood yet there is a continuous urge of love in this ruler. Kubla Khan when looks for love in his past life there is all lust present in his life. There is a woman present in the past of Kubla Khan that had a lustful relation with him. Kubla Khan searches for peace in his mind and heart but fails every time. His quest for peace continues represent as caves that cannot be measured by man and sunless oceans in the poem continue. Passed experiences also warned Kubla that same things that happened in past can happen again. It was a miracle that he found a woman that he can love and not lust for. Woman is represented by words sunny pleasure-dome and caves of ice represent the happiness and calmness Kubla Khan had in mind and heart after achieving her. Kubla wants to protect this feeling of peace and revel in it. 3. Romanticism is the natural phenomenon on which the entire world is based ultimately. To show her character the monster also had feelings and was in a state of unrestrained emotional experiences writer Shelly used poetic aspect of the monster she had created. Problem occurred when it was attempted to gain knowledge by lead character beyond accepted human limits. This urge of getting knowledge and creativity of the lead character leads to the death of all dear ones related to him. Frankenstein also called Victor in the novel after the death of his close friends William and Justine got depressed. He considered himself responsible for the death of his friends. At this point monster Frankenstein goes towards the mountains. After winter he feels revealed and then returns to his fight with the monster inside him. All of his time he spent on mountains was of memories of his lost friends and feelings of being guilty represented poetically in the novel. Novel is considered as a manifest of life of writer herself. She had somewhat alienated and isolated life. Ran away with her husband and the fact that her children died; moreover her nervous breakdown contributed to these alienating feeling that is dominant throughout the novel. The pursuit of knowledge was an important part of personality of the write. This urge is also shown in lead character of the novel. Urge of getting knowledge was also in her blood as she was daughter of two writers. And death of dear ones can be related to death of her children. Shelly died of brain tumor in 1851 after the death of her husband (which was drowned), one miss carriage, death of two children and surviving a major nervous breakdown. 4. Healthcliff is known as person who can never forgive anybody. In the novel Wuthering Heights the character Heathcliff is betrayed by everybody him. He was kept as a slave by Hindley. He begins to lose his love of life Catherine due to the reason that he was a slave and cannot give Catherine with the luxuries that she has habit for. She betrays him badly which makes him unforgiving in nature and this causes dramatic changes to his living styles. His chances of getting a bright future were badly damaged by this change. He was emotionally depressed and dishearten by this whole situation. He wants to get revenge from Hindley he refers as a cause of his failure, especially loss of his love. His unwillingness to forgive Hindley is shown all over the novel. He wants to get revenge from Hindley regardless of how much time and life it will cost to him. His unforgiving nature has lead to another aspect of his life; that he is very selfish. Due to total crash in his life and failures gathered all around him; he came to believe that he is the only he can trust in the whole world. He constructs a barrier or shell around him that might not be broken by any one of this world. Throughout the novel Heathcliff is involved in a violent behavior in expressing both love and hate towards others. He is considered as a beast due to his behavior and no body after his failure in love cares about the past of Healthcliff. In the end He himself is not much interested in violence as he was getting bored of it. But even then he wants to get his revenge from Hindley. 5. Time traveler is one of the greatest science fiction novels written in the history of literature. Wells the writer narrates the story of a time traveler and his machine; machine was used by the time traveler to travel across times. One day he goes somewhere on his time machine; leaves his machine and walks some distance away from it holding its lever in his hand. He on return to landing area witnessed his time machine gone. He tries to search it and thinking that no one can travel through time on it as he still has its driving lever. Also he was not gone for a considerable amount of time for someone to steal the machine. Timer traveler finds creatures that live in the underground called morlocks. Morlocks were small creatures that live beneath the surface of earth and served another creature called Eloi. Eloi being superior in mentality and socially dominated them. The only significant similarity he felt in morlocks and him was, they were just like sort of humans regarding building structure and clothing he saw. Also kingdom system was similar to communism idea and can be compared with modern British Empire. Time traveler fought with Morlocks in order to get his time machine back with help of Elois. He after a battle retrieves his time machine and escapes from Morlocks at the last moment. The novel was written during the time when world was under great industrial revolution. British Empire was progressing greatly due to strength of kingdom as it was present in almost every part of world in those days. Quest of man for a better future and idea of communism was at its peak. British Government was trying its level best to take full advantage of the materialistic approach of mankind. Due to the threat of total consumption by the Empire time traveler invented his machine to escape from the Empire but found himself stuck again in a system that is similar to the system he wanted to leave behind. The idea of industrialism was attacked by the writer Wells in this novel. Reference: Famous Authors | List, Books and Biographies of Famous Authors. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. Read More