The Tempting Fruit

"Tis one thng to be tempted, another to fall." William Shakespeare

Temptation can be one of the hardest things man must overcome and man is often placed in situations where the temptation seems to great to resist. I decided to break away from the love poems for a time and step into temptation…at least a poem about temptation. Emily Dickinson described temptation best in her poem “Forbidden fruit a flavor has”. It is a one stanza poem which means it is fairly short so I decided I would simply copy and paste it into my entry rather than give you the link like I would normally do.

FORBIDDEN fruit a flavor has

That lawful orchards mocks;

How luscious lies the pea within

The pod that Duty locks!

Emily Dickinson chose a topic that people have dealt with from the beginning of man in this poem, temptation. One would assume that Emily Dickinson purposefully gave this piece religious connotation by referring to forbidden fruit. Forbidden fruit are referred to from the Bible, when Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit and are later expelled from the Garden of Eden because they admit to God that they had eaten the fruit he has forbidden them from eating. Temptation has several meanings when referring to religion such as in Dickinson’s poem. It can mean committing a sin such a lying all the way to sinning through murder. Resisting temptation in modern day is related back to honoring a bond or relationship you have with another being and not cheating or deceiving this person. Unfortunately, temptation has grown in modern world and many find it hard to resist by remaining faithful which is cause for the failure of far too many relationships. Emily Dickinson died in 1886 in older times when temptation was not so easily taken in so it is curious to think about how she would she the world today seeing this poem was written over one hundred years ago. Is it possible that people has lost the will power that many used to have and cheat and lie making marriage no longer a lasting union for many. It is disheartening to hear that about only 50% of marriages in modern day are a success. At that frightening rate one of every two marriages fail which really brings a damper on the whole point of marriage. It makes me wonder why we have let marriage success rates drop so enormously and what the cause is. It is something to think about, has temptation become too hard to resist or have people lost their willpower to resist it?