What Does The Tyger Mean

William Blake's “The Tyger” beautifully explores the nature of the rather deadly tiger and, arguably, the even deadlier, immortal hands in its genesis. The misspelling of the beast is rather odd, but it can be argued that it induces a sort of confusion and dissymmetry— a confusion and dissymmetry that Blake feels whilst gazing upon the tiger, perpetually asking more and more answerless questions—a repetition that is most dramatic. For instance, upon gasping at the tiger’s glowing eyes, he questions what type of intelligence could be behind such a “fearful symmetry.” He compares this timeless intelligence to a blacksmith pounding away with anvils and hammers in his shop. Oddly enough, the rhythm of the poem follows a repeating “pounding.”

Upon this, Blake adds alliteration within the rhyming couplets to cohere with this blacksmith’s pounding. For instance, the first and second line in the second stanza throw a reader’s mind into vacuum-like abyss, and leads them to question the dwelling of the divine hand and eye in the creation of all things precisely because the phrase “distant deeps” was alliterated— the effect is multiplied manifold over if one orates it with some passion. With the use of the vowel ‘i,’ assonance— the slightly hidden form of alliteration—paints the character of the blacksmith, or divine intelligence, as malevolent: Blake questions where the divine intelligence “Burnt the fire of thine