Tyger the Unbearable Darkness of Essay

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Knowledge and the ability to learn, to think, and to analyze are terrible gifts, this interpretation says, not because they are not useful or powerful but because their power is both so capable of destruction and so limited in comparison with the giver/creator of this knowledge and ability.

The clear religious elements of "The Tyger" also have bearing on this message of true knowledge and its fearsome un-attainability. The querying voice of the speaker and the progression of the poem creates something of a narrative quest for knowledge, and "natural imagery" in Blake's work "invariably serves a prophetic purpose," according to one scholar (Altizer, p. 31). In this instance, however, what the tiger (an unusual yet strong natural image) prophesizes is only the terror and the futility of advancing further in the quest to understand the tiger's maker, i.e. God. The continued bafflement of the speaker and the awe (in the full meaning of the word) that a consideration of God's work inspires in him is evidenced by the last lines of the penultimate stanza, the last two lines of original verse (the last stanza being a repetition of the first): "Did he smile, his work to see? / Did he who made the lamb make thee?" (lines 19-20).

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"The Tiger" is simple enough to understand on the surface, however profound this surface meaning is. Digging deeper shows that there are many layers of meaning embedded in this poem, though, and that a quest for knowledge can yield some rewards. These rewards might not be as complete as desired and the answers might not be expected, but like a consideration of the tiger they are quite informative.

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