The Human Abstract

Overview/ what poem is about

• Blake uses the extended metaphor of a tree grown from negative emotions and natural symbolism to suggest that evil are inside us all

What does the extended metaphor show

• extended metaphor through the personification of the tree

• shows how 1 negative human emotion can feed and nourish others

• all stemming from human inequality and the unfair rich/poor divide

“Pity” “mercy” “Peace” “loves”

• 4 virtues in the divine image are personified to show they can be a force for evil if combined with selfishness and simplistic teachings of the church

“if we” “ as we”

• collective pronoun

• suggesting humans are collectively responsible for evils of the world and why so much injust is prevalent

“He sits down with holy fears”

• reference to the established church through religious language

• suggesting it is responsible for fuelling inequality and human misery

• suggesting the cruelty of organised religion traps people

“the dismal shade”

• natural symbolism

• allusion to death

• euphemism for death

“Mystery over his head”

• tree of mystery is a metaphor for the stifling effect of rationalism, reason. empirical science and the repression of the imagination

• suggesting the presence of the church leas to ignorance

• religion becomes an excuse for people to be deceitful

• yet another explanation for inequality and deceit and death on earth

“There grows one in the Human Brain”

• organic, continuous verb

• suggesting the real tree of knowledge that will offer solutions to injustices on earth is grown and incubated in the human brain/ the imagination