The tyger is a "fearful" beast. In the first stanza, the speaker asks what "immortal hand or eye" (God) could have created him. In the fourth stanza, the speaker uses the metaphor of God as a blacksmith creating the tyger (tiger). Being born of fire and steel, the tiger is, in Blake's descriptions, something strong and fierce. In the following stanza, the speakers asks if the tiger's creator was happy about his creation:
Did he...
The tyger is a "fearful" beast. In the first stanza, the speaker asks what "immortal hand or eye" (God) could have created him. In the fourth stanza, the speaker uses the metaphor of God as a blacksmith creating the tyger (tiger). Being born of fire and steel, the tiger is, in Blake's descriptions, something strong and fierce. In the following stanza, the speakers asks if the tiger's creator was happy about his creation:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
The speaker asks if God ("he"), who made the lamb, also made the tiger. The lamb represents peace and love. The lamb is often symbolically synonymous with Christ in Christian theology. So, the speaker is asking if God could create something so loving (the lamb) and yet also create something so dangerous and ferocious. There are no answers to the speaker's questions. This leaves the poem open to different interpretations. Perhaps God did make both peaceful and dangerous things in the world to create a balance and an analogue with the good/evil dichotomy. Perhaps the tiger (or other dangerous and evil things the tiger represents) was created by a fallen angel, a demiurge, or a devil. The speaker can only ponder.
Consider a gross simplification. The speaker asks who created the tiger and why. This echoes similar questions such as: If God is loving, why did he create suffering? Blake goes much deeper in terms of theological and philosophical questions. But the general idea concerns how and why the world contains love and hate, good and evil, peace and destruction.
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