m, but Elizabeth remarks, "Go along, silly!" (Lawrence 340). The chrysanthemums smell beautiful to the daughter, but not to Elizabeth, because they hold unpleasant memories for her, "It was chrysanthemums when I married him, and chrysanthemums when you were born, and the first time they ever brought him home drunk, he'd got brown chrysanthemums in his button-hole" (Lawrence 340). Later, after Elizabeth learns from her mother-in-law of the death of Walter, her husband, she notices: "There was a cold, deathly smell of chrysanthemums in the room" (Lawrence 345). When the men come in carrying the body of her husband, one of them knocks a vase of chrysanthemums off a table: "As soon as she could get in the room, she went and picked up the broken vase and the flowers" (Lawrence 346).
Elizabeth's lack of emotion about the husband's death is sharply contrasted with that of her mother-in-law. The mother-in-law wails and moans, and cannot be comforted because of her son's death. Even in washing his body for burial she cannot help but make loving remarks, "Isn't he beautiful, the lamb?" (Lawrence 348).
Elizabeth seemed closer to her husband in death than she had ever been to him in life. Death closed the distance between them. She saw him, and herself, for the first time. She realized that her husband had suffered helplessly through their marriage, just as she had. Now that he was dead, she could close that episode of her life, and perhaps the symbol of chrysanthemums will no longer be unpleasant for her.
The poem "The Sick Rose" by William Blake is filled with symbolism in every line. None of the images in the poem makes reference to real life events or circumstances. Consequently, it is difficult to interpret the poem entirely on its own merits, an understanding of Blake's other literary works would be helpful.
First, Blake proclaims that the rose is sick. Although in the real world, roses do suffer from disease, ...