Where The Wild Roses Grow ~ NickCave

4 Pages 1006 Words

“Where the Wild Roses Grow” by Nick Cave is a tragic tale of ill-fated love. Nick Cave uses a variety of literary elements such as foreshadowing, symbols and mood to strengthen and deepen the effect of his poem.
The tale of Elisa Day’s first and her last love takes place over a period of three days. From the moment he walked in her door she was captured by his charm and trustworthy personality: “When he knocked on my door and entered the room/ My trembling subsided in his sure embrace/ He would be my first man.” The man appears to be drawn to her at first sight: “From the first day I saw her I knew she was the one/ As she stared into my eyes and smiled.” On the second day their feelings toward each other become more apparent. “On the second day I brought her a flower/She was more beautiful than any woman I’d seen.” The man notices Elisa’s exceptional beauty and seems to desire it, but it is still unclear what his intentions are. Elisa on the other hand sees the man with adoring eyes and wants to be with him and to be comforted by his tender embrace: “I nodded my head as I lay on the bed.” On the third and final day after Elisa accepts her love’s offer to take away all of her pain he takes her to where the wild roses grow. There on the banks where the wild roses grow the man murders Elisa merely muttering “All beauty must die.”
Elisa is referred to as “the Wild Rose” throughout the poem, symbolizing that she is willful and not refined. The man often connects Elisa to a rose especially in beauty: “For her lips were the colour of the roses.” The final connection he makes is placing a rose between her teeth after killing her down by the river where the wild roses grow. At first the man is charming and seems very reliable and in love with Elisa: “Do you know where the wild roses grow/ So sweet and scarlet and free?” The use of the word scarlet deepens the meaning of his words and symbolicall...