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Innocence To Evil: Analysis Of William Blake's The Tyger

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Innocence To Evil: Analysis Of William Blake's The Tyger
Innocence to Evil: Analysis of William Blake’s “The Lamb” and “The Tyger”

In William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, the poems “The Lamb” and “The Tyger” are companion poems. Together, the two poems showcase one of Blake’s five main themes- childhood innocence can be dominated by evil after experience has brought an awareness of evil. With the lamb representing childhood and the tiger representing evil, Blake’s poems “The Lamb” and “The Tyger” focus on childhood and what people become after they grow and experience life. “The Lamb” comes from William Blake’s Songs of Innocence, so readers are aware that the poem will be symbolic of an innocent time. This innocence is seen throughout the poem; the speaker seems to be a child as he continually asks, “Little Lamb, who made thee?” (1). The lamb is a symbol of the innocence of childhood; the speaker wants it to know how precious it is, so words such as delight, wooly bright, and rejoice are used. Blake also makes the poem more childlike by making its form similar to that of a nursery rhyme. “The Lamb” becomes even more simple and innocent with this …show more content…
“The Lamb” perfectly portrays and symbolizes the innocence of childhood. Blake chose a lamb for the poem because they are associated with innocence and purity, just as a child who has not come into contact with the evil of the world is. Blake uses “The Tyger” to completely carry out the theme. A tiger is used to symbolize how people grow up, become aware of evil, and choose to let that evil overcome the innocence they once knew, the innocence of the lamb.The tiger is not loved by the speaker as the lamb is because the speaker is aware of the evil that the tiger is. Just as tigers dominate lambs in the animal kingdom, evil dominates innocence because innocence becomes lost after evil is
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