"The Tyger" K. Moua

In William Blake’s poem “The Tyger” Blake describes and questions the creation of the tiger. Blake describes the creation of the tiger to that of a smith. He uses the images of a hammer, chain, furnace, and anvil to describe the image of a smith in stanza four. In this stanza he questions why the smith would create a creature like the tiger. The image of the tiger is usually associated with the characteristics of a beast, ferocity, and fear. The image of the smith symbolizes the industrial process in which the tiger was created. This image in the poem contradicts Blake’s beliefs. Blake believed that all living creatures were holy and he was opposed to industrialization. This image though can be interpreted in a different way. Blake wrote this poem in a childish tone due to the rhythm and rhyme scheme of the poem. He also deliberately misspelled tiger as tyger. I think he did this to connect the tiger with the childish theme of his poem. In his illustration of the tiger, he portrayed the tiger as childlike instead of a strong beastly creature. His illustration showed the tiger’s face as clumsy and childish. When we think of a child we usually think of innocence. I think that the image of the smith creating the tiger means that the tiger is what we make of it. In the poem Blake also question why someone who created the lamb would also create a tiger. This question makes the tiger look like something evil who preys on the lamb. It also means that we are bias in our view of the tiger because the tiger is what we make of it. The tiger’s view of itself is not evil because it only preys on the lamb to survive. Blake connects the childish tone of the poem to the tiger to portray that the tiger is not evil but good because he thinks all living things are holy. In Blake’s final stanza he repeats the first stanza, but changes the word “could” to “dare.” This means that do we still dare to think of the tiger as something evil because we do not see through the same eyes as the tiger.