Theoretical Perspectives on "The Sick Rose"

The invisible worm that flies in howling storm under the cover of darkness has discovered rose's bed. And now, the rose is on the verge of decay by the virtue of worm‟s dark secret love.

Feminist Perspective:

Rose, a symbol for woman, is a voiceless and non-masculine social construct. In contrast, Worm, a symbol for man, dominant and masculine in nature exercises power over voiceless woman. In the poem, Rose does not demonstrate any opposition to actions of worm for it is touted inferior in patriarchal society. Additionally, when a man exercises power over woman by virtue of patriarchy; a woman is left with no choices other than unwillingly accepting coercions. „Secret Love‟ here refers to a man's lust, and Dark signifies evil for a man forcefully exploits woman in patriarchy. Furthermore, when a man forcefully exploits woman, her life becomes no less that of a dead, for she is compelled to be submissive.

Marxist Perspective:

William Blake (1757 – 1827) witnessed climax of industrial revolution which took place from 18th to 19th Century (A+E Network). Along with industrialization, society was partitioned into two groups: proletarian and bourgeois, on the basis of ownership over means of productions (Nardinelli).

Rose, a symbol of proletarian, is exploited by owners in capitalist economic system. „Worm‟, a symbol for bourgeois, who possess explicit control over resources, takes advantage of all means of productions including labor. On Marxist view, proletarian's life, which once used to be as beautiful as rose's crimson joy is now in the verge of death due to exploitation by the worm like bourgeois. Moreover, no opposition of Rose in the poem illustrates proletarian's submissiveness.

New Critical Perspective:

While examining any work of art from a new critical perspective, we do not look for the intentions of artist; rather we explore meaning out of the text that is self-sufficient in itself for interpretation (Delahoyde).

The Sick Rose is composed of two quatrains each having seventeen letters. All words in the poem are monosyllabic except five, namely “Invisible, Howling, Crimson, Secret and Destroy. The rhyming pattern of The Sick Rose is ABCB. The first stanza reveals that rose is sick. Additionally, the same stanza somehow reflects bad intention of worm. For worm flies in cover of night, we can assume that worm holds some bad intentions (Rocheleau).

Moving on to the second stanza, poet has illustrated cause of rose‟s sickness and the ultimate consequence. The sick rose is dying successively because of worm‟s dark secret love. An irony in the poem is that worm flies in the howling storm, but worm does not fly in reality, rather it crawls. Moreover, metaphors are widely used in this poem. „Rose‟ can be seen as a metaphor for woman, proletariat and many more. What „Rose might mean here is subjected to open interpretations. Likewise, „Worm‟ can be considered as metaphor for something or someone that deteriorates other‟s life.

Works Cited

A+E Network. HISTORY. 2009. 03 September 2017 <http://www.history.com/topics/industrial- revolution>.
Delahoyde, Michael. Critical Theory. n.d. 04 September 2017 <https://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/new.crit.html>.

Nardinelli, Clark. THE CONSCISE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ECONOMICS. n.d. 03 September 2017 <http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/IndustrialRevolutionandtheStandardofLiving.html>. Rocheleau, Allison. n.d. 04 September 2017 <http://people.umass.edu/acrochel/romanticpoetspaper.pdf>.