The social
conscious poet William Blake is a mystic poet also and he feels the spiritual
presence , the presence of God, in every
simple object of the nature – in
this Earth, in air, in water, everywhere. It is Blake who can find a world in a
grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower. Quite naturally, the lamb, the
child and God are the replica of one another in Blake’s vision. The tiger, the
most fearful animal of the dark forest,
appears to be a wonderful creature to Blake who finds a ‘fearful symmetry’ in
the form of the tiger. The awe-inspiring figure of the tiger has made Blake
visionary and he vents such words which lead us to a mystic and spiritual land.
“The
Tyger” is taken from The “Songs
of Experience” of William Blake. Experience is such a state that may easily
lead one to the way of corruption, where
innocence finds no room. God has created
the fierce animal tiger, in a particular
time, for a particular purpose. Actually the tiger is the symbol for the wrath
of God, that was keenly necessary in time of the spiritual crisis in society. We
know that God is full of mercy, full of grace , full of grandeur ; but any time if situation demands, God may be full of
anger , manifestation of wrath, lord of destruction. Why would God destroy something which he has so gladly
created ? Actually he destroys the evil part of anything, not the thing created
by him. God can not tolerate any type of degeneration and depreciation of
religion. When aversion to religion becomes a part of human beings,
a crisis is inevitable. Like a
strict and methodical father God projects his wrath to make everything in tune.
The tiger is the manifestation of that
wrath by which God wants to revert those degenerated and fallen multitude. The fierce force embodied in tiger is necessary to
break the citadel of corruption, the
bond of experience. The tiger may be thought as the spiritual revolt. At this
point one may cite the manifestation of
God in the shape of ‘Nrisingha’ (Face of lion on human body) as found in the
Hindu mythology. When the oppression of Hiranyakashipu (a demon) crossed all
boundary ‘Nrisingha Avtar’ of God (Hari)
manifested and killed the father of Pralhad (a steadfast devotee of Hari) with
sharp claws and teeth of the lion. The creation of the tiger has some
similarity with such manifestation of God’s destructive appearance.
A prominent symbolic implication is found in the expression of “the forests of the night” that stands for ‘ignorance’. A major part of society, numberless people of the earth, grapple in the darkness of ignorance, are covered with superstition. Forest is a fine hiding place and night symbolizes ‘darkness’ , Quite naturally, in the darkness of the forest one may lose the path and reach nowhere. This darkness is nothing but the darkness of man’s mind where righteousness finds no place. The ‘forest’ stands for the world of experience, such a world where man deliberately conceals the errors and dims the light. ‘Fire’ is a strong and meaningful symbol in the poem ‘The Tyger’. The fire stands for wrath as in “Faerie Queen” Spenser wrote “wrath is fire”. The repeated use of ‘fire’ suggests that the purpose of ‘wrath’ is to consume the errors. The stubborn beliefs can not be removed by the mild and polite of instructions, fire is the only thing that can consume all the evils of society. Fire can purify the dross of the mind and society and establish a new pattern of life.
To conclude,
the symbol of “ Songs of experience”
automatically brings the reference of the symbol of innocence, the lamb. God has created ‘the
tiger’ only to make the place of the lamb ,the manifestation of God, permanent.
