William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience

William Blake contrasts the innocent  Lamb in “Little lamb” with the dangerous tiger in “The Tyger” and asks the question, “Did he who made the lamb make thee?”. Aspects of both the lamb and the tiger can be seen in humanity and the world in the general.

“Little Lamb” begins with a child questioning the origin of the lamb, “Dost thou know who made thee?”. The seemingly obvious answer would be some god or deity. The lamb here represents innocence and purity as it has “clothing of delight”, “softest clothing” a “tender voice”. Now in the second stanza, the child answers the questions that he just previously asked the lamb. He reveals that the one who created the lamb also “calls himself a lamb”. However this time the connotation of a lamb refers not to the creation but to the creator, Jesus Christ. By referring to both the creation and the creator as a lamb, the creation is shown to be a reflection, or mirror image of the creator. The poem ends with the line, “Little Lamb God bless thee”, however to whom the lamb refers to remains ambiguous as it could refer to the creation or the creator.

While the lamb that is described in “Little Lamb” represent innocence and purity, the tiger in “The Tyger” is characterized by violence and terror. The tiger represents an investigation into the existence of evil in the world. It raises the question, would the same God who made the innocent lamb also create the dangerous tiger? Throughout the work the speakers asks a series of questions about the origin of the tiger. The poem begins with the contrasting description of a “Tyger burning bright” and “the forest of the night”. Burning has the connotations of energy, power, and danger which differs from the placidity of the night. And though the tiger is evil, it has “fearful symmetry” and thus is beautiful. The fact that the tiger’s creator must “twist the sinews of thy heart” implies the corruption that exists inside the tiger but not in the lamb. The poem continues with the portrayal of forging the tiger to create it which seems like an unnatural method to create life, like victor when he created the creature in Frankenstein.  The speaker asks the question, “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?”. The lamb represents the goodness in world and the tiger represents the evil in it. This leaves the unanswered question that did the same god who made all things good in the world also make all the evil things in it as well. The first and last stanza of the poem are the same except for the last line of each and it changes; It changes form “What immortal hand or eye/Could frame thy fearful symmetry” to “Dare frame thy fearful symmetry”.  This one word change shifts the meaning from is possible to would God venture to do so. And if the creation is a reflection of the creator as suggested by “Little Lamb”, is the evil that the tiger represents present in our creator?