Analysis of the Flowers of Evil
In The flowers of evil is a confession about failures, sins, hopes and dreams in an attempt for extracting beauty from a malignant situation. It goes against traditional poetry that extracts beauty from nature by infusing artificial paradoxes to convey emotions. Beauty is capable of evolving on its own without the influences of sin and nature. It leads to a division in the ideal and spleen where the spleen is a signifier of wrong, death, solitude, disease and murder. The ideal is a representation of transcendence against harsh realities of the world. The ideals of modernity come through indulgencies whines, passion, travel and opium helping to dull the impact of pains experienced in life. It creates a state of ecstasy, voluptuousness and happiness imagined with a misplacement of death and time.
Through use of erotic imageries, there is conveyance of passions and feelings of ideals. However, there is disappointment of the speaker through continued interference of the spleen seeking retribution and taking reign. There is constant confrontation by the fear of the possibility of death, suffocation of the spirit and failure of his will. However, amidst the thwarting of the speaker by the spleen, the poet thrives at making the situation look beautiful. There is ample symbolism between the spleen and the ideal such as the speaker running his hands in the woman’s hair and instead of appreciating her beauty creates comparison with a decomposed body. This enhances the reinforcement of the lingering presence of death within the poem, with the evocation of the reality of vampires, monsters and demons acting as a reminder of the possibilities of death. There is no possibility of finding an ideal rose after a long search and the heart of the narrator remains empty.
