The poem the Tiger is one of the poems from the ‘songs of experience’ collection of poems written by William Blake. The poems main theme pays attention to tiger creator and centers on the creation aspects. The poet compares the fierce, ferocious and brutal tiger to the gentle, frail and adorable lamb and wonders whether they have the same creator.
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
The word tiger is emphasized through repetition on the opening of the poem to create rhythm in the poem. The repetition is also meant to draw the interest of the readers. The poet’s description of the tiger shows the poet’s great use of imagery alliteration and metaphors. The tiger is described as being brightly colored and fire has been symbolically used to represent horror, fury, superiority and force.
The poet says that the tiger is merciless and cold blooded that even its creator must be immortal or else it might turn against its creator. Only an immortal would be attacked by such a ferocious creature and get to live. Therefore the creator must be immortal!
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The poet wonders where all the tiger’s brutality, fierceness, anger, violence is supplied from. Is it from heaven or hell? The source of the tiger’s personality seems to be a matter of concern for the poet. The poet has used a dichotomy to show the difficulty he has in unraveling the tiger’s personality.
The poet has likened the tiger to fire and it is so relentless that nobody would even dare to get hold of the tiger. The muscle that the creator gives the tiger is so immense that it leaves the poet only with great admiration for the tiger. The imagination and technique that has gone into creating the tiger’s twisted heart is quite artistic. This mercilessness of the tiger may be as a result of the twisted nature tiger’s heart muscles. Human beings and other creatures dread the tiger for its feet and hands that makes it super fast and majestic.
The tiger’s brain must have been so cleverly shaped because the tiger is very sneaky. The poet wonders what tool might have been used to shape it. The tiger has a good memory that poet wonders how it never forgives or forget and what chains hold the brain it its position. If the poem was created in a furnace then it must have been so hot this represents the rage of the tiger.
Once the creation of the tiger was completed and it set foot on the earth bursting with life there were a lot cries that flooded heaven from the stars. The stars put down their spears in rejection of the tigers creation knowing only too well the wanton destruction that would follow in the world.
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The poet wants to know whether the creator was delighted by the outcome of his creations power and strength. Do the ferocious tiger and the adorable lamb share the same creator? These are questions that never cease to linger in the mind of the poet. According to the poem the tiger is the lambs predator this means the tiger was created to eliminate the lamb. This means that in nature there must be a balance and it is the tiger that brings this balance therefore whatever has a beginning must certainly have an end.