The Sick Rose and The Suffering of Woman

ABSTRACT

As people know, poetry is as universal as language and almost as ancient. It has been the concern of the folks not only the lowborn citizens but also the royal families and the educated men. Poetry might be defined as a kind of language that says more and says it more intensely than ordinary language does. Being in the group of the intelligent, it is a must to study more intensively about the poetry. To enjoy and love every time reading the poem is very important for the writer in composing this essay. William Blake was born in London England in the year 1757. The Sick Rose is one of The Songs of Experience’s by William Blake written in 1794 when one of the only jobs women could get was one within prostitution. In the 18th century London became a center of public houses. The worm represents any male customers who goes to the prostitute and are after personal satisfaction. The Rose’s life is destroyed physically, emotionally, socially and psychologically.

INTRODUCTION

According to “A Handbook to Literature”by C. Hugh Holman, the Professor of English University of North Carolina, “Poetry is a term applied to the many forms in which human beings have given rhythmic expression to their most imaginative and intense perceptions of the world, themselves, and the interrelationship of the two”.

As people know, poetry is as universal as language and almost as ancient. It has been the concern of the folks not only the lowborn citizens but also the royal families and the educated men. Poetry might be defined as a kind of language that says more and says it more intensely than ordinary language does. Being in the group of the intelligent, it is a must to study more intensively about the poetry. To enjoy and love every time reading the poem is very important for the writer in composing this essay.

THE POEM

The Sick Rose

LITERARY REVIEW

1. Woman Prostitution
2. Nathan Cervo's "Blake's The Sick Rose"

3. Leopold Damsroch. Jr.

    

DISCUSSION

From a background in which the poem is issued, at the time of London in the 18th century London became the center of public houses, where many customers who are looking for the satisfaction came to the public houses. The speaker in “The Sick Rose” try to describe how is the women circumstances at that time and how they suffer their life in prostitution.

“O rose, thou art sick!”

As mentioned in the literary review by Cervo, “The Rose” is not described as a beauty of love, but it tells about the state of woman which is so “sick” and far from love until it suffers because she live in the prostitution.

“Does thy life destroy”

In the last line, according Cervo “life’s vulnerability”, the woman which was influenced by the character "the invisible worm” should suffer her ultimate fate because all she has had been destroyed. As it described in the Metaphor that the man’s lust makes the woman’s life destroyed.

Besides, the first aspect that mentioned by Leopold Damroch before is that the poem can read as a naturalistic rose (roses do decay). Meanwhile the speaker does not mean that that people would innocently appreciate the poem as a description of a naturalistic decay of the worm-eaten roses. As it is described in the Symbols that “The Rose” is refers to “woman”. It is symbolized a woman whose love plundered by a man who does not responsible against the woman. The virginity was taken from the woman, so that not only the loss of purity, but she also feels physically, emotionally, psychologically and socially ache.

The other aspect mentioned by Damroch is sociopolitical. As we know prostitution is never been illegal and so could the only be prosecuted when associated with disorderly conduct or public indecency. In the middle century, England saw the apogee of the double standard of sexual morality; male sexual access to women was a necessity but any slip from sexual purity on woman’s part cut her off from respectable society.

 However, the proper aspect according to Leopold Damroch is about the psychosexual. The man symbolized as an “invisible worm” is hanging around at night carrying an aura or an unpleasant situation with him to search for sexual satisfaction within prostitution. It does destroy the woman’s life and she must suffer her life after the prostitution.

CONCLUSION

William Blake’s “The Sick Rose” is a simple yet meaningful poem to describe the woman’s suffering in 1794. In that era, London is experiencing rapid growth in prostitution where so many people go the pub seeking for inner satisfaction. Blake eliminating the symbol of the beauty in the “rose” and describing it as “a sick rose” and shows his sadness about the condition of woman who lived in prostitution in that era.

This poem is beautifully described where Blake used the “worm” and “rose” as the main characters and make a story about the women who suffer her life in prostitution and get her life destroyed by the droves of men who come to search for prostitution. “The Sick Rose” brings us about the psychosexual aspect where the man behavior of sex drives him to search for sexual satisfaction.

REFERENCES

Abrams., Ford., Daiches. 1890. The Norton Anthology of English Literature Volume 2. England: W. W. Norton and Company.

Cervo, Nathan. Blake's' The Sick Rose. Explicator. 48: 4 (Summer, 1990), 253-54. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00144940.1990.9934016. Accessed in June 23 2015 at 10.00 PM.

Damrosch, Leopold, Jr. Symbol and Truth in Blake's Myth. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1980. https://books.google.co.id/books?id=5q3_AwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false. Accessed in June 25 2015 at 7.48 AM.

Harvey, Sir Paul. 1967. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Great Britain: Oxford University Press.

Holman, C. Hugh. 1985. A Handbook to Literature. Indianapolis: ITT Bobbs-Merrill Educational Publishing Company, Inc.

Perrine, Laurence., Thomas R. Arp. 1992. Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry. United States of America: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers.

Oxford. 2008. Oxford Learner’s Pocket Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.