The Sick Rose

Roses are among the strongest conventional symbols in English. As the word “crimson” suggests (Line 6), “The Sick Rose” is a red rose. Red roses traditionally symbolize romance, love, beauty, courage, and purity. Of these, Blake focuses on the rose’s associations with beauty and purity, and shapes the flower, when healthy, into a symbol of youthful, prelapsarian innocence. The rose, then, stands in as a symbol of the Garden of Eden itself and the virginal innocence contained within.

Blake’s rose, however, is never presented in its ideal state. When the poem begins, the rose is already “sick” (Line 1), and the reader is already informed of this affliction from the poem’s title. This is also true of humanity in the Christian conception—particularly after the Fall, every individual born is viewed as potentially corrupt and predatory.

The worm is the most complex symbol in “The Sick Rose,” and, like its animal and religious namesake, it is difficult to get hold of or dissect without accidentally creating two meanings. Outside of the poem, worms often symbolize death or decomposition, and Blake’s worm maintains part of this association though its role in the rose’s death. But the worm’s most salient symbolic role is as a representation of Satan.