The Sick Rose by William Blake

                 The Sick Rose

After reading this poem, I try to understand why the poet gives the poem titled “The Sick Rose”. From the poem, especially the selection of words reviewed the range of contradictory and complementary meanings. The rose symbolizes lots of things which related in our daily life.  It can be beauty, perfection, passion…etc.  It shares the common motifs of death and destruction in the collection, telling of a rose that has reached the end of its lifespan in the advent of the creeping winter.

This poem can be applied in a literature classroom, it is easy to understand and students will have fun in learning literature.  How to get students’ to love poetry? How to get their attention to our lesson? These questions always appear in my mind when preparing a lesson.  I am a primary school teacher and I never teach poetry in my language classroom. But one day if I am given a chance to teach a poem in my lesson, “The Sick Rose” will be my choice.

First, I will pose an illustration or picture to get my students discuss and talk about the picture shown based on their understanding. Then will get the student to read the poem and play with the words by guessing its meaning or searching the meaning from dictionary. Lastly, relate their findings to daily experience.

I choose this poem because it can use to relate and give different references like the darker side of human nature, and the death resulting from it.  The rose is slowly dismantled by a number of factors – “the invisible worm” and “the howling storm” in which the rose doesn’t stand a chance.  The “crimson joy” could be a symbol of passion and love.  It represents the bloodshed in the loss of virginity.  This may also suggest an affair, shown by the word joy.

Conclusion, reading and learning literature is fun.

“Symbolism found in John Steinbeck’s literary works.”

The Chrysanthemums

John Steinbeck’s work “The Chrysanthemums” brings symbolism into play to represent Elisa Allen’s frustrations and hidden passions. Elisa’s failing detached marriage is represented through two symbols; the Chrysanthemums and fences. He draws pity from the reader for Elisa Allen who desperately wishes to experience the passions of a fulfilling marriage and the stimulation of a man’s life. He also creates a sexually repressed and discouraged Elisa Allen who is isolated from society however still retaining their values and is also trapped in a fruitless marriage.

Steinbeck has placed on Elisa all of the abilities of a man, and described her animalistic nature in the same way he describes his other male main characters, such as Kino, from “The Pearl.” Throughout Steinbeck’s stories strong male characters are known to snarl, or growl, or act in other animal like ways, but in “The Chrysanthemums” this role is reversed, and the female character, Elisa, is given these qualities. Aside from the style juxtaposition, Steinbeck liberates Elisa of children, another stereotypical female constraint, and describes her strength, her affinity with plants and the land, and the stoic manner that she presents herself. By giving her so many masculine features, but keeping the character as a woman, Steinbeck is making a universal claim that women are equal to men, by making Elisa relatable to male readers.

Reading John Steinbeck’s work was a great experience. This story has been regarded as one of Steinbeck’s finest pieces of fiction. Critics are divided, for example, over whether Elisa is sympathetic or unsympathetic, powerful or powerless. Few modern short stories have built up such a body of criticisms as “The Chrysanthemums”, as readers have tried to establish Elisa’s reasons for her dissatisfaction with married life.

As to conclude, male went out to work to earn living, they are the breadwinner for a family in the past, but now it has totally changed. Women also play an important role in a family. Steinbeck is making a feministic appeal for woman’s equality by highlighting Elisa's strengths, her power, and her abilities, is making it clear than women do have more to offer than being trapped in their homes. Henry himself says, even if he may only be joking, that Elisa would be helpful working on the ranch based on her talent at growing large and healthy chrysanthemums.