the tyger

             William Blake's "The Tyger"
             Through life there is an ongoing balance between good and evil. In William Blake's poem "The Tyger", the tiger's divine parentage is constantly questioned. "Did he who made the lamb make thee?"(20). The speaker is perplexed how the same immortal creator could derive both the docile lamb and the fiery tiger who vividly contrast each other. Common in Blake's poems are views of "the two contrasting states of the human mind." In this poem Blake has chosen a sinister and menacing beast against a pure and innocent creature to show the variation. There is an immortal body in the universe making a balance of innocence and experience, good and evil, which enables mankind to function.
             There is a bit of "Tyger", or what it symbolizes, in all of us. Adam and Eve chose to eat the forbidden apple when they were instructed not to. Adam was then expelled from the Garden of Eden, into the "forests of the night" (2) after he listened to the evil snake. The "tyger" represents that irrational voice that dwells inside our heads that we all listen to at some point in our lives. The suggestions made by this imaginary figure are sometimes dangerous and have repercussions yet at the same time appealing. This is much like the animal tiger. It is how we perceive the tiger that makes the animal vicious or gorgeous.
             The speaker says, as if he were speaking to the creator "In what furnace was they brain?" questioning who would create such a quality. "In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes", this poses the question of whether the creator is evil, like Lucifer from the deeps (Hell); or good, like God of the skies (Heaven). The poem remains an enigma in "The Tyger" unlike "The Lamb" where the question of "who made thee?"(1) is answered. The symbolism used in ...

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