Thoughts on love, life, writing and friends.

Friday, 8 November 2013

The ‘Tyger’ is a completely different case than the ‘Little Lamb’ because Blake is ambiguous about its natural creation in his poem “The Tyger,” and is inconsistent with the writing and artwork he presents on this subject. First, Blake does not assert that the ‘Tyger’ is created by God, like the ‘Little Lamb,’ but questions this. This suggests Blake’s uncertainty regarding this creature’s natural creation. For example, Blake writes, “What immortal hand or eye / Could frame thy fearful symmetry,” (Blake 84). However, Blake also gives numerous examples of the subject’s ‘fearful symmetry’ from its physical action to its features. Blake describes the ‘Tyger’ as ‘burning bright in the forests of the night,’ inciting ‘deadly terrors,’ and emphasizes the ‘fire of [its] eyes.’ Yet the pictorial image does not look fierce since the mouth is closed, concealing its piercing teeth, so that the reader does not sense the supposed terror of the ‘Tyger.’ Drawing a wide-mouthed roar would have made the image more intimidating because along with the imagined sound of this gesture, the reader could visualize the terror and fear the ‘Tyger’ inflicts on its prey. Even the choice of colors for the ‘Tyger’s’ body contributes to this inconsistency. The body is painted only half golden to symbolize ‘burning bright’ and the upper portion is painted various colors, including darker color tones, so the terror we associate with ‘burning’ and ‘bright’ colors has banished. The movement of the ‘Tyger’ shows patience, compassion and pleasantness because the subject is walking slowly along the grass. We do not see any interaction with its prey, and showing such detail would have projected a much fiercer image than is expressed in the actual picture.

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