The Tiger

Question 1

Associations with ‘Tiger’

Answer 1

• Predatory
• Perfect
• Exotic
• Vicious
• Dangerous

Question 2

‘Tiger, tiger, burning bright,’

Answer 2

• Literal reference to the fur of the tiger
• repetition of ‘tiger’, nursury rhyme.

Question 3

‘Could frame thy fearful symmetry?’

Answer 3

• Good versus Evil, symmetry of Tiger being beautiful despite the tiger being a predator.
• ‘Fearful’ Blake questions the integrity of God, if he is so benevolent, how could he create a creature such as a tiger.

Question 4

‘In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

Answer 4

• ‘deeps’ -> hell ‘skies’ -> heaven, God rules over both domains. Ultimate hypocrite.
• ‘fire’ Heaven & hell, hellish danger , fear of the tiger for its strength.

Question 5

‘On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?’

Answer 5

• ‘dare seize the fire’ reference to Greek Mythology: Prometheus who stole a flame and brought it to humanity in defiance of Zeus.
• Interrogatives, Accusatory. Here, Blake is really questioning the benevolance of God.

Question 6

‘And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?’

Answer 6

• Here, Blake questions why God would make the Tiger. How does it appeal to humanity?

Question 7

‘What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?’

Answer 7

• Black Smith Imagery
• Precision of the Tiger’s creation, it was deliberate.
• Semantic field, all the tiger’s trait deliberate.

Question 8

‘Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?’

Answer 8

• Did God (‘he’) enjoy creating this monster? Does God enjoy the cruelty of the Tiger?
• ‘Make thee,’ Moment of realisation, Betrayal of God.

Question 9

‘Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?’

Answer 9

• ‘Dare’ Blake is criticising the creation of evil and it’s origin. (God)
• ‘Dare’ intentional, God chose to make the Tiger.
• Cyclical structure, inevitablilty, the answer to the Tiger’s creation will never be known.
• ‘Symmetry’ Fear of perfection.

Question 10

Example of two aspects of SOCPOLIC in ‘The Tiger,’

Answer 10

• Radical voice of narrator
• Cruelty

Question 11

God created the lamb but also the…

Answer 11

• ‘Tiger’ -> Symbolic of Predators, death, evil and fear.

Question 12

The Tiger

How could God let people suffer due to what in society at the time?

Answer 12

• Industrial Revolution
• Child Labour
• Poverty
• Exploitation