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Cheyenne Bentley
Professor Sarah Kiewitz
Lit 2220-501
30 November 2015
The Tyger
The Tyger is an immortal creature out of a childs book that has fearful qualities with a
frame that is an interpretation of an actual tiger which leaves one to wonder what this creature
really is. This creature is a beast that is never fully described in the poem besides as being
identified as an immortal man. The Tyger stands to be questioned if God was the one that
created something this treacherous or if someone else did. William Blake, the author of The
Tyger, judged the world based on Biblical standings as seen through the Lamb and the Tyger
that appear throughout all of his writings as innocence and evil to fully describe what the
creature is in The Tyger.
The Tyger represents an animal that is the most terrifying creature in the world. The
play on the word tiger could suggest that the tyger may take the form of a tiger but it is not
exactly a tiger at all. The misspelling of the word changes the overall expectation of the poem all
together by showing an alternative spelling to the name. OED (Oxford English Dictionary) came
up with tiger, along with other variations of the word, when you look up the word tyger. The
closest definition that most suits this poem is the one that is applied to onewhich in some way
resembles or suggests a tiger by possibly meaning a person of fierce, cruel, rapacious, or
blood-thirsty disposition (Tiger, N.). This definition most suits because it is unknown if this
creature is actually a tiger or not. The creature may just take on the form of a tiger but have
outstanding strength and powers that does not even classify them as being just a tiger. This could

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possibly be why this poem was used to represent the serial killer, Red John, in the TV show The
Mentalist.
The poem is read in a way that suggest that the speaker is examining the creature from
afar. The speaker refers to the tyger as being a man which would suggest that the tyger reflects
humanity from a certain stand point. The tyger lives in the forest and roams around at night. The
beast can twist the sinews of the heart to the point of paralyzing its prey. According to OED,
sinews is a type of strong fibrous cord serving to connect a muscle with bone or other part; a
tendon (Sinew, N.). A sinew is referenced in The Tyger as being part of an animal that is used
for some purpose. The tyger twists their enemys sinews to show dominance of who is the top of
the food chain and deserves to be feared by showing their strength and power to the prey to strike
fear into their very soul. It is noted that there was a fight going on in Heaven: when the stars
threw down their spears and waterd heaven with their tears (Lines 17-20). The angels cried
tears down to Earth in shame.
The creature is described by a series of questions but is never fully characterized. The
most that is described of the tyger is the terrifying symmetry, hands, and feet. The poem goes off
to compare the tyger to a hammer, chain, furnace, anvil, and a creature that is in question as to if
God created him or not. All of the tygers that Blake used in his poems all represented cruelty,
destructiveness, and bestiality in one way or another (Baine 576). They all have a dark meaning
to them that covers up the innocent words of a normal poem by describing them with words that
most people would see as sins or unholy.
Almost every poem Blake wrote has a Biblical standing to it. Blake believed in God
when he was alive along with the Christian faith. He also believed that the human imagination of
the world was key to the truth. Without this, blindness arises all the laws, oppressions, and

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inhibitions of our fearful world (Stevenson 196). Blake saw that a world without imagination
threatened the innocence of imagination. Blake uses the Lamb in his poems to symbolize the
innocence of imagination to its counterpart of a world that threatens innocence as the tiger.
Blake notes the Lamb and the Tyger in almost every single poem written. The tiger has a
divine origin. It is also the most rapacious and destructive of all carnivorous animals (Rix
223). The tygers terrifying symmetry comes from Blakes idea of divine humanity which states
that the human divine is created in perfect proportions to the Lords divine qualities (Rix 226).
The tyger is an interpretation of man just like we are in Gods eyes. All creatures are drawn in
their creators eye as a form of interpretation of who they are or what they wish they were. The
drawing of Blakes tyger could state an abstract way of seeing humanity by showing an
interpretation of an actual tiger. The lamb symbolizes the Lamb of God along with human
innocence and Christ. The tyger is the opposite of the lamb: cruelty and destruction. It is all that
is evil in the world. Some would compare the tyger to being the Devil or Lucifer because of
destruction. The Tyger questions the origin of evil and its creator.
The Tyger is a poem that does not have a perfect interpretation. All poems show
different ways to be interpreted. The terror of the tyger is the evil that lurks in the world that
threats what God created which is the innocence of nature. Everything has an innocent side that
is always encountered by an equal evil force. The poems form showed the effect and meaning of
The Tyger by comparing the enjambed stanzas. The first stanza questioned the existence of
what immortal being could describe the tyger. The last stanza is a reflection on the first by asking
what immortal being dares to describe the terror of this creatures symmetry. Blakes view of
The Tyger is seen through a Biblical standpoint of how evil destruction (tyger) by appearance

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affects the innocence (lamb) in the world even when the creature at hand is an interpretation of
man like we are ourselves.

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Works Cited
Baine, Mary R., and Rodney M. Baine. "Blake's Other Tigers, And 'The Tyger'." SEL: Studies In
English Literature, 1500-1900 15.4 (1975): 563-578. MLA International Bibliography.
Web. 18 Nov. 2015.
Blake, William. "The Tyger." The Norton Introduction to Literature 11 (2013): 1076-77. Print.
"Sinew, N." Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 2015. Web. 01 Nov.
2015.
Rix, Robert W. "William Blake's 'The Tyger': Divine And Beastly Bodies In Eighteenth-Century
Children's Poetry." Anq 4 (2012): Academic OneFile. Web. 18 Nov. 2015.
"Sinew, N." Home : Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 2015. Web. 10 Dec.
2015.
Stevenson, W.H. "Blake's Progress." Essays In Criticism 49.3 (1999): 195. Academic Search
Complete. Web. 18 Nov. 2015.
"Tiger, N." Home : Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 2015. Web. 10 Dec.
2015.