The Tyger
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful
symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare sieze the
fire?
And what shoulder, & what
art,
Could twist the sinews of thy
heart?
And when thy heart began to
beat,
What dread hand? & what
dread feet?
What the hammer? what the
chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread
grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down
their spears,
And water'd heaven with their
tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make
thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful
symmetry?
William Blake
Analysing:
The poet uses rhyming words at the
end of sentences, repetition, imagery and rhetorical questions pertaining to “The Tyger” throughout
the whole poem.
The poet uses structure in the poem
which can be seen from the use of repetition of “Tyger” in the first stanza.
This is to express that “The Tyger” is being called repeatedly, thus creating a
chanting mood and catches the attention of the reader.
The poet also uses imagery in the
poem to describe “The Tyger”. This is evident from “burning bright” which tells
us that “The Tyger” as a ferocious, intelligent and powerful creature.
The poet also uses language in the
poem to further talk about “The Tyger”. This is evident from “What immortal hand or eye.
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” which tells us that which “immortal hand or
eye”, which may most likely be pertaining to God or someone who is big and
powerful, can “frame thy fearful symmetry”. From “frame thy fearful symmetry”, “frame”
can refer to putting something in something else, so as to contain it, like
framing a picture, so if we frame something, it would not be able to get away. While
for “fearful symmetry”, “fearful” can mean the scariness of “The Tyger” and
”symmetry” can mean the artistic beauty of something, which can refer to “The
Tyger”. Therefore, the poet is saying that what God “frame” is a beautiful
creature which is fearful.
The
poet uses imagery and language to create a picture of Heaven and Hell and
talking about the God. This is evident from “distant deeps or skies”, “distant deeps”
referring to Hell and “skies” referring to Heaven. With this, the poet asks
about who is the God who created “The Tyger” by writing “Burnt the fire of
thine eyes”. Then, he goes on to ask if it’s the God in the “skies” or the
Lucifer in the “distant deeps”. The poet goes on wondering about what God could
have created “The Tyger” by writing “On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare sieze the fire?”
which tells us that the poet is asking what does the God do.
The poet then again uses language and
imagery to ask who was the one to create this creature by using rhetorical
questions. This is evident from “And what shoulder, and what art could twist
the sinews of thy heart?”, the “thy” is referring to “The Tyger” and “Could
twist the sinews of thy heart.”, the word “twisted” used to tell us how
“twisted” or sometimes corrupt Humans can be.
The poet also
uses language to talk about the creation of “The Tyger”. This is evident from “And when thy heart began to beat, What
dread hand? & what dread feet?”, which tells
us when the heart of “The Tyger” beats, God asks himself if he dreaded creating
“The Tyger”, which is powerful and capable of doing good and evil.
The poet also uses imagery and
language to create an image of a God trying to create “The Tyger” and what was
“The Tyger” like. This is evident from “What the
hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil?” which shows
us a God is hammering away to create his creature and from “In what furnace was
thy brain” tells us that the creature was made of hard and metallic materials.
And the poet goes on to say that “The Tyger” is a evil creature which is
evident from “what dread grasp, Dare its deadly terrors clasp?”. The words
“dread”, “deadly” and “terrors” gives us a feeling of something dark and evil,
thus by using these words, it tells us that “The Tyger” was created by a God in
Heaven and therefore is capable of doing good and also bad.
The poet uses
imagery to express the feelings of God after creating “The Tyger”. This is
evident from “Did he smile
his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” which tells us if God was
happy with his creation and did he actually smile upon that. “the Lamb” refers
to innocence due to it being white and it is pure, thus it is incapable of
doing wrong and only doing good. Therefore, this tells us that it is hard to
believe but it is true that it is was the same God who had created two
creatures, one being pure but the other known as being evil.
The poet
then again uses repetition of “Tyger! Tyger! burning bright, In the forests of
the nights, What immortal hand or eye”, which are present in the first three
lines of the poem. Unlike in the first stanza, the last sentence of the last
stanza is different. Instead of “Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”, the
rhetorical question is now “Dare frame thy fearful symmetry”, which tells us
that it is not if God is powerful enough to create a creature like “The Tyger” but whether or not he dares to create a
create like “The Tyger”.
All in all,
this poem talks about the creation of “The Tyger”, which can do both good or
evil, depending on its choice and thus is terrifying as we will not know which
it will choose and with a free will to choose, it may lead them astray from
being loyal to their creator. But despite the fact that “The Tyger” might turn
his back on his creator, God, due to possessing traits of evil, God still
created “The Tyger”.
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| Picture of a tiger, which is a ferocious creature just like "The Tyger" |
Video on The Tyger
