The Tyger Analysis Essay

Unlike the lamb this poems meaning is something different I believe. In my opinion this poem can be interpreted as a response to the industrialization that Britain was going through during the time of Blake. I think we first see this in the title “The Tyger” or tiger misspelled. When you think of a tiger you think of ruthlessness, ferocity, fast acting, just as the industrialization of Britain. This theme is very common through out Blake’s pieces as we see it in almost every poem. It is present in “The Chimney Sweeper” and “London”. Blake paints an image of what the tiger represents through out this poem and its harsh nonetheless, which further makes me believe that he is talking about the revolution. I believe that the description of the tyger that Blake gives us an insight to think that it is unpleasant and hurtful, not necessarily the tyger itself but the revolution that is tied in with it. We see the word “dread” repeatedly used in describing the tyger and we can draw a conclusion to say that it puts an emphasis on the pain and suffering that was

The poem, The Tyger, contrasts innocence and experience, and good and evil. The description of the tiger in the poem is as a destructive, horrid creature. The original drawing on the poem shows a smiling, cuddly tiger which is quite the contrast to the tiger described in the poem. This picture might suggest a misunderstanding of the tiger and perhaps the fears that arouse from the poem are unjustified. This poem contrasts the tiger with a lamb which often symbolizes innocence, Jesus, and good. The tiger is perceived as evil or demonic. Blake suggest that the lamb and the tiger have the same creator and in a way states that the tiger might also have the ability to have the benign characteristics of the lamb. The tiger initially appears as a beautiful image but as the poem progresses, it explores a perfectively beautiful yet destructive symbol that represents the presence of evil in the world. In the poem, Blake writes: " What immortal hand or eye, / Could frame thy fearful symmetry (4-5)." It is hard to determine if the tiger is solely evil or good.

According to Blake this creature has a special "inner" source of energy which distinguishes its existence from the cold and dark world of inanimate things (Blake 3). There is also an essence of the devil in the tiger. William Blake points this out by using words like furnace and just by him picking a tiger. There are many other violent predators out in the jungle but he chose the tiger because of its bright orange and black. When it runs it looks like a fireball. In line twenty of "The Tyger," William Blake says, "Did He who make the lamb make thee?" (Blake 539). What he is wondering is if he made such an innocent creature like the lamb how could he make a beast like the tiger?

Rosemary Dobson’s The Tiger delicately examines the notion of discovery as a medium of freedom, relating back to her own mental captivity similar to a tiger in a cage. The extended metaphor allows careful analysis of the sub-lying plot describing a poet's sense of discovery through their imagination. Through Dobson’s use of emotive language in “smouldering with rage,” the audience can better understand the poet’s deeply felt emotion, being unable to write to her heart’s content. “Behind the black-barred page” further accentuates, assisted by the alliteration, the statement's metaphoric value of remaining captive under frustration and oppression, destroying any belief or hope of achieving freedom to discover. Additionally, the hyperbole in the celestial frame of “He rakes the sky and stars...and is not done,” emphasises the search and will to discover, explaining that Dobson will do anything for her freedom, in order to achieve self gratification. The extended metaphor is resolved in the final

William Blake’s 1793 poem “The Tyger” has many interpretations, but its main purpose is to question God as a creator. Its poetic techniques generate a vivid picture that encourages the reader to see the Tyger as a horrifying and terrible being. The speaker addresses the question of whether or not the same God who made the lamb, a gentle creature, could have also formed the Tyger and all its darkness. This issue is addressed through many poetic devices including rhyme, repetition, allusion, and symbolism, all of which show up throughout the poem and are combined to create a strong image of the Tyger and a less than thorough interpretation of its maker.

In the poem “The Tyger” by William Blake, the use of rhyme, repetition, allusion, and symbolism all help the reader understand the theme and what was going through the authors thoughts while writing. William Blake was a mystic poet who channeled his thoughts and questions to write poems. He questioned the creator of both the Tyger and lamb, how could the same God create a destructive creature like the Tyger and on the other hand create a gentle animal, the lamb. This ties into the theme of the poem of how a God could and would create a monster like the Tyger.

In America a Prophecy, Blake has mixed his own mythology with historical figures and events. Orc is a positive figure in Blake’s

"Awake! awake O sleeper of the land of shadows, wake! expand!(4:6 )" Here is the initial call, the call to Albion, which is Israel, that has been superimposed on England. For as we see later, "All is Eternal Death unless you can weave a chaste/ Body over an unchaste Mind!(21:11)" He needs England to feel the way he feels, to see not just the trees in the forest but the color of each of those trees, and which have sparrows living in them. For Blake, life is Eternal Death, and only in the imagination can there be refuge. Thus the first contradiction appears; the idea that one must awaken not the physical self, but the Los within. Awake, but on the inside, keep your temporal self asleep- it does too much damage when arisen. For no immortal hand or eye can weave a chaste body over any mind. An image forms here of Blake resting his hands ever so on gently the English people to begin to sense their new directions. Herein lies the portal through which he traveled in order to exit the long Miltonic shadow- the England Blake was moved to prophesize to was not Milton's. The factories had changed that. And though man is ever unchanged, it is democratization and technology that drag the cart of history. Blake saw then most clearly that he was not Milton, nor should he try to be. His England, his Albion was starving for something vastly different than Milton's England was.

William Blake’s poetry is considered through the Romantics era and they access through the sublime. The Romantics poetry through the sublime is beyond comprehension and spiritual fullness. A major common theme is a nature (agnostic religion). In William Blake’s poem “The Tyger” he describes the tiger as a creature that was created by a higher power some time before. In Blake’s poem he questions, “What immortal hand or eye/ Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?” (Blake 22-23). He describes the tiger as a form of symmetry that can be seen as evil, yet have intriguing features such as those that make the tiger a beautiful creation. Blake also questions if that the higher being who created the tiger also created all else around the world such as a human being. Blake shifts his first stanzas from the tiger to the creator. Not only is he questioning who created the tiger, but he is also describing the beauty and evil of the world. The beauty that the Romantics believe in is nature and one evil seen through the world is materialism that distract humans from the beauty of nature 's gifts. He believes that people lose touch with spirituality when haven’t given to nature. Blake also illustrated his own works through

William Blake’s The Tyger and The Lamb are both very short poems in which the author poses rhetorical questions to what, at a first glance, would appear to be a lamba lamb and a tiger. In both poems he uses vivid imagery to create specific connotations and both poems contain obvious religious allegory. The contrast between the two poems is much easier to immediately realize . “The lamb” was published in a Blake anthology entitled “The songs of experience” which depicted life in a much more realistic and painful light. Both poems share a common AABB rhyme scheme and they are both in regular meter. In “The Tyger” Blake paints a picture of a powerful creature with eyes of fire and dread hands and feet. He asks rhetorical questions with a respectful awe that is almost fearful and makes the setting more foreign to the reader by including imagery like “the forest of the night” By contrast. Blake’s portrait of the lamb is one of innocence and child like wonderment “The Tyger is almost an examination of the horrors in the world while “The lamb examines only that which is “bright,”tender, “mild”. The use of words like “night,” “burning’ and “terrors in the tyger”create quite a contrary image for the reader than that of “The lamb.”

Blake uses traditional symbols of angels and devils, animal imagery, and especially images of fire and flame to: 1) set up a dual world, a confrontation of opposites or "contraries" which illustrate how the rules of Reason and Religion repress and pervert the basic creative energy of humanity, 2) argues for apocalyptic transformation of the self "through the radical regeneration of each person's own power to imagine" (Johnson/Grant, xxiv), and 3) reconstructs Man in a new image, a fully realized Man who is both rational and imaginative, partaking of his divinity through creativity. The form of the poem consists of "The Argument," expositions on his concepts of the "contraries" and of "expanded perception" which are both interspersed with "Memorable Fancies" that explicate and enlarge on his expositions, and concludes with "A Song of Liberty," a prophecy of a future heaven on earth.

The archetype of this poem focuses on how aggressive and vicious the tiger is. It also can be seen as a more physical comparison such as, “Tyger Tyger, burning bright,” (line 1, page 749). Blake says the tiger is burning bright, but does not mean this literally, for he is comparing the color of the tiger to the color of fire. Blake does insult God for creating the creature because all it does is kill and destroy. The tiger also has more power. In which, the Songs of Experience poems are related to those that are leaders, fighters, and that are more outspoken; therefore, The Tyger fits more perfectly with that collection of

William Blake was known to be a mystic poet who was curious about the unknowns in the world, and strived to find all the answers. Does God create both gentle and fearful creatures? As a questioned asked in the poem “The Tyger” William Blake pondered on why an all-powerful, loving God would create a vicious predator, the Tiger, after he created a sweet, timid, harmless animal, the lamb. The theme of this poem surrounds this idea of why the same creator would create both a destructive and gentle animal. This issue is brought up and discussed through rhyme, repetition, allusion, and symbolism.

In “The Tyger” it states, “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” (Blake line 20). William Blake’s curiosity makes the reader feel uncertain. He only highlights the importance of the tyger through asking questions. Blake’s questions were challenging the principles of Christianity. He was underling why God created the beautiful lamb and the ferocious tyger. He wanted people to know that the world is filled with tranquility and disturbance. God himself wants people to adhere to the opposites of life. The way we humans deal with beauty with horror and love with pain. God is the creator of both creatures, but also the creator of such emotions presented within them.

The first stanza focuses on the tigers and creates an impression of majesty and power, such as with their ‘sleek chivalric certainty’ (l.4). In psychology and literature, ‘the symbol of the cat was related to the redemption of something feminine’ , and so Rich’s use of the tigers as a predatorial and strong member of the cat family demonstrates Aunt Jennifer’s internal power that derives from her being a woman. The word ‘chivalric’ is traditionally associated with knights and military prowess, and Rich subverts this typically male adjective to the feminine tigers and their representation of Aunt Jennifer’s inner strength (l.4).