I I I I

was told was told

angry with my friend: my wrath, my wrath did end. angry with my foe: it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears Night and morning with my tears, And I sunned it with smiles And with soft deceitful wiles. And it grew both day and night, Till it bore an apple bright, And my foe beheld it shine, And he knew that it was mine And into my garden stole When the night had veiled the pole; In the morning, glad, I see My foe outstretched beneath the tree. -A Poison Tree by William Blake -Compare with when Victor is about to tell the story to William on the ship at the beginning -William is Victors friend, and he tells the story to William to help calm him of his wrath -Victors foe is the monster -Because Victor isnt able to catch the monster and speak to it, his wrath has been growing and pushing him to the brink of death -The monster, later, gains power from causing Victor pain and killing his loved ones. Victors reactions to the deaths of his loved ones waters the monster with tears. -Victor let the monster go out into the world having no idea about peoples stereotypes and judgments, or his deceitful wiles, although Victor was not aware at the time that he was being deceitful. - The monster grew as it gained knowledge and experience

-The apple could be referring to the apple from the garden of Eden. The apple is sin, or doubt. Basically it represents any negative ideas that start to form in the mind of a character. Its something so tempting, but it eventually ends up hurting the character. For the monster, that was seeing the family in the mountains being happy together. The monster approached the old man, wanting to be part of it. It bit the apple, and what followed could only be described as traumatizing. -The apple for the monster couldve only come from one person, Victor. Victor was the snake, he planted the tree that tempted the monster eventually. The shine suggests the extra pull put in place by the monster himself from his studies, the happiness he saw between the members of the family. The monster figured this out, and swore to find Victor. - Victors garden is his life, which the monster stole into. -The use of the word and repeatedly at the beginning of every line shows how swiftly Victor performs his actions. This is referred to as

polysyndeton.
-The polestar, that is, the fixed North Star, the star that mariners

use to keep them on course, is obscured. In other words, the foe steals into the garden at a moment when his sense of moral direction has been impaired by the speaker's ruse. Basically, when the monster first started the cat and mouse game with Victor that ends on the boat. The monster went to check on Victor when he said he was going to make it a bride, when the monster still believed Victor was true to his word. -If it does, as the reader is entitled to believe it does because the tree bears poison, then the couplet reveals the baseness of the speaker. It shows the pleasure the speaker takes at the fall of his enemy: In the morning, I am glad to see that my foe lies dead beneath the tree. If, however, "outstretched" means only outstretchedthat the foe is not dead but that the apparently friendly relationship is poisoned and the foe realizes that his apparent friend is not his friendthen the problems of human confrontation, anger, and enmity remain, as they do for all people.

-The last two stanzas are more from the perspective of the monster. Was he either happy to see that Victor was dead at the end, or was he happy about their relationship breaking (Go with the first one, it makes more sense) Or, it couldve been the place that Victor wanted to be in. When he woke up on the morning of his wedding, he wouldve been happy to see the monster dead at his feet. Or, he was glad that he permanently ruined any chance of them having a friendship. This wouldve made Victor seem crueler than he is.