'The Tyger' Essay Plan = Evil

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  • The Tyger = Evil
    • Language
      • Plosive 'b' alliteration
        • Makes the phrase more colourful and vivid. Close repetition of the sound creates a kind of intensity meant to conjure the intense bright light emitted by a fire. Aural and visual effect.
      • Rhetorical questions
        • Questioning how God could have made both the lamb and the tiger
          • Questions the creator's ability to create something so mighty
            • Old Testament God, Jahweh - similarity to New Testament God?
          • Refrain of the last stanza
            • Questions the creator's ability to create something so mighty
              • Old Testament God, Jahweh - similarity to New Testament God?
      • Apostrophe brings the reader nearer to the tiger. Acknowledges the existence of the tiger though it seems to be far away. Also mirrors 'The Lamb' poem.
      • Symbol of industrial tools
        • - Noisy and fiery atmosphere of a metal workshop.        - Symbolise creativity           - Invokes the Industrial Revolution     - If the tiger represents a kind of evil, then perhaps this extends to industry too
      • Allusion
        • 'what the hand, dare seize the fire?' alludes to the Greek myth of Prometheus, the deity who stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind
      • Refrain of the last stanza
      • Structure
        • X6 Quatrains
          • Regular, musicality, easy to memorise
          • Unity & cohesion of God
        • AABB rhyme scheme
          • Times when the metre sounds more iambic than trochaic, e.g. Line 11 sounds like the beating heart is describes
          • Sense of forward propulsion. Couplets are highly memorable.
        • Refrain
        • Metre: Trochaic catalectic.
      • Interpretations
        • Colonial reading
          • Hugh Munro mauling
            • Sultan Tipu "Tiger of Mysore"
              • Irony: Hugh's father had been hunting him
            • Xenophobia in England
              • Threats from home and abroad
          • British imperialism in India
            • Tigers indigenous to India
          • British East India Company
          • Blake = Anti-imperialist
        • Christianity: Blake was a devout Christian, though not in the conventional sense
        • French Revolution
          • French Revolutionaries slaughtered hundreds of aristocrats and priests
            • September Massacres of 1792
          • Regularly referred to as 'tigers' by British press
        • Christianity
          • Problem of evil
          • Old Testament vs. New Testament
          • Mirrors 'The Lamb'
      • Thematic link
        • Lamb = goodness
          • Tiger = evil
        • Poem is an extension of themes in 'Songs of Innocence' and 'Songs of Experience' which juxtapose opposing sides of human nature - comparing and contrasting innocence with corruption

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