Summary For Where Mind Is Without Fear

Rabindranath Tagore sketches a moving picture of the nation;
he would like India to be. In lines 1-2, the poet pledges to the
Almighty that his country should be free from any fear of
oppression or forced compulsion. He wants that everyone in his
country should be free to hold their heads high in dignity. He
dreams of a nation where knowledge or education would be
free that is education should not be restricted to the upper class
only but everybody should be free to acquire knowledge. There
should not be any caste distinctions or gender distinction when
it comes to education. In the succeeding line,
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Tagore, in his poem Where The Mind Is Without Fear wishes
for a world which is not fragmented by prejudices based on
caste, creed, color, religion or other baseless superstitions.
Prejudices and superstitions should not divide the people in
groups and break their unity (line 4). He wants a nation where
people are truthful, not superficial and words should come out
from the depth of their hearts (line 5). The sixth line of Where
The Mind Is Without Fear talks about the poet yearning for a
country where people would strive without getting tired to reach
perfection leaving behind prejudices and old traditions. In the
next line, line 7, Tagore wants the power of reason to dominate
the minds of his countrymen, he does not want the stream of
reason to be lost amongst outdated customs and traditions and
only that can direct the mind towards selfless thoughts and
everlasting action.
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
In the final line of the poem, Tagore asks the Father,
presumably God to awaken his country into such a heaven of
freedom.
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
The poem is patriotic in nature considering the independence
and the happiness of the countrymen as the most important
factor. If a country lacks such requirements, the countrymen
can never be at peace. Consequently, the society will be full of
disharmony and social unjust. The poem sends a message that
the society should be free from all social evils, only then it can
lead to progress. Therefore, Tagore prays to God to create such
an ideal society for his motherland. Make sure you go through
the critical analysis of Where the Mind is Without Fear.
Tell us what you liked most about this poem by Rabindranath
Tagore.
The Poison Tree by William Blake provides a clear lesson on how to

handle anger both with a friend and enemy. The narration is first person
point of view with a nameless speaker.
The poetic form has four quatrains with a set rhyme scheme: AABB. This
means that each quatrain has two couplets. This rhyme scheme creates a
simple and easy way to follow the flow of the poem. It makes a powerful
statement about how conflict should be handled. In his poem, Blake warns
about the ill effects of holding malice inside oneself. The poem is a
metaphor for what happens when one allows anger to grow within.
The first quatrain describes a friend getting angry at his friend. Because
the speaker knew and liked this person, he explained his feelings and the
conflict was resolved. The anger ended. On the other hand, the speaker
clashed with a person that he did not like. He held that irritation inside and
did not express or tell the other person what was wrong. That resentment
began to grow inside the speaker.
The second quatrain begins the extended metaphor with the comparison
of the anger and the poison tree. Initiating the idea of the narrator
cultivating his rage, he waters the budding tree with fear and tears every
day and even the night. Still, the enemy does not know of this growing fury.
Fear can make a person act out of character and lose his emotional
balance. Deceptively, the speaker employs his smiles as though it was the
application of the sun to this toxic tree. With charm, he allows no
interjection or awareness of his wrath.
And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.
The third quatrain nurtures the tree/ire metaphor. Anger poisons the
human spirit; furthermore, it endangers the ability to use logical reasoning.
Finally, this tree bears the fruit of the narrators fury in the form of a
beautiful, appealing apple as in the Biblical forbidden fruit. The enemy

desires the apple and realizes that it belongs to the speaker.
The final quatrain brings the anger to an end; however, the narrator has
lost his humanity. He now is glad that the enemy is dead. The fruit of his
antagonism [the poison apple] lured the enemy into the garden; he ate the
apple; and now the foe has been eradicated. The last couplet indicates
that the narrator finds comfort in the death of the other man.
Blake uses the poem as a warning to those who harbor grudges and allow
the feelings of resentment to stay inside without dealing with them.
Communication becomes the only way to avoid the fruit of the poison tree.

Summary For Where Mind Is Without Fear

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Rabindranath Tagore sketches a moving picture of the nation;

The Poison Tree by William Blake provides a clear lesson on how to

beautiful, appealing apple as in the Biblical forbidden fruit. The enemy

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