Summary: Blake’s Tyger—Revisited
Michaela Morgan’s poem Blake’s Tyger—Revisited is based on the fact that captive tigers can
lose their stripes and colour and fade to white.
The speaker is talking about a tiger that has been imprisoned in a small cage, probably in a zoo.
The tiger is bored and all he can do is pace around the small cage. The days and the nights feel
longer to the tiger because he has nothing to do. The tiger cannot dream about hunting his own
prey—it is not possible from within the cage.
The tiger no longer has any space or hope for a better future. Once upon a time the he moved
quickly through the free woods and roared loudly in pride and joy. Now the tiger is quiet. The
freedom of the woods is not his anymore—he can only see a tiny bit of the sky from his cage.
He smells the concrete, the puddles and the car and misses his freedom. But he continues to
stare outside, increasingly hating the world and thinking it a bad place.
Michaela Morgan’s poem Blake’s Tyger—Revisited is a response to William Blake’s 18th century
poem The Tyger. The tiger in Blake’s poem is a majestic and fierce creature. In Morgan’s poem,
the tiger has been reduced to a pale and weak shadow. The loss of freedom has destroyed a
magnificent creature—he loses the very stripes and colours that he was hunted for. The poem
has a rhyme scheme of aabb. The use of this child-like rhyme scheme to describe a serious
subject seems to mock the humans who are responsible for this tragedy.
POEM BLAKE’S TYGER—REVISITED
A. 1. The tiger’s cage is just twice his height. He is probably in a zoo.
2. Day and night feel long and slow to the tiger because he is stuck inside a tiny cage with nothing to
do. He must feel dull and bored.
3. The tiger dreams of hunting, chasing and eating his prey out in the open.
4. The tiger can see a little bit of the sky from his cage. He can also see a puddle and concrete. He can
smell cars. These sights and smells make him unhappy because they are alien to him. He has been
taken from his forest and made prisoner in a urban city, where he does not belong.
B. 1. a. There is no need or space or opportunity for the tiger to dream of hunting, chasing and killing
prey out in the open.
b. Before the tiger was caged, he lived like royalty in a forest where he could do as he pleased. He
could chase and hunt down his prey with freedom.
c. It is probably some zoo that has caged the tiger so that they can earn money by charging
people to come see the tiger.
2. a. The tiger sees the world ‘through jaundiced eyes’ because he has been treated very cruelly by
the world. He has been snatched away from his home into a cramped cage, not allowed to do
anything. This is why he thinks the world is bad and filled with bad people.
b. The tiger is justified in feeling that way because he has never been treated well by humans.
c.
C. 1. Once upon a time the tiger lived in a beautiful open jungle where he could roam free. Now he has
been captured by humans and is forced to live in a tiny cage that is just twice his height. He has
very little space to move about in. When he was free, the tiger could chase and hunt down his prey.
But now he can only uselessly dream about hunting—he does not have the freedom, space or
opportunity to do so anymore. He used to roar with power but now he has lost all his energy and
lies quietly, staring and snoring. He had fresh air and nature all about him but now is forced to live
in the urban jungle, where he is surrounded by cars and concrete. He was once a royal animal of
the jungle, but now he is a sad and lonely tiger.
2. The tiger’s stripes start to fade if they are held in a cage for too long. To fade also means to become
thin, weak and die slowly. The tiger is unhappy in the cage. In addition to losing his stripes, he is
also losing his energy and his life. The word ‘fade’ is also used to refer to the species as a whole.
Tigers are endangered species and if we continue to hunt and kill them, the entire species will die
out or become extinct.
D. In national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, forests are protected and animals are allowed to remain in
their natural habitats. People are allowed to visit national parks but steps are taken not to disturb the
animals. In zoos, however, animals are removed from their homes and kept in cages that are built for
them. In a lot of zoos, the cage is small. To keep animals in such cages and zoos is cruel. Some zoos
provide bigger, more spacious cages. They even provide plants you would find in the real home of the
animals. But this is still cruelty because you have taken the animals’ freedom away. They can no longer
do as they like—they have to do as the owners of the zoo say. This is against the rights of animals.
Once captured, animals can never go back to their forest. Even if they are released from their cages,
they no longer remember how to hunt. On the whole, zoos are harmful to animals. We should take
steps to protect animals in their homes, not take their home away from them.
BLAKE’S TYGER-REVISITED POEM
A. Answer in brief.
The poet says –‘No space. No point. No hope.’ How do these words bring out the state of mind of the
caged tiger?
Ans: The tiger is in a stuffy, small cage where he is not able to move about freely. He is unable to do
anything except walk up and down spending long days and longer nights pacing the cage. As a result
the tiger is very sad, dull, hopeless and lonely.
B. Answer in detail.
1. How is a caged tiger’s life different from that of a free tiger?
Ans: A tiger is a ferocious, powerful animal living in forest chasing and hunting his prey. The poet
says that the tiger takes great pride in its superiority and roars in the forest, frightening timid animals.
A free tiger has nothing to fear and can move about in the forest freely. A caged tiger, in contrast, is
helpless and feels hunted as he is controlled by humans. He does not have enough space to move
about and spends the day pacing up and down the cage. He is devoid of any freedom now and feels
lonely and sad. He lies in the cage quietly staring into space.
C. Read the lines and answer the questions.
His world once echoed to his roars.
Now he’s quiet. He stares. He snores.
a. Who is referred to in the above lines? What was his world?
b. Why is he quiet now?
c. What does the poet mean by ‘He snores”?
Ans: a. The tiger is referred to in the above lines. He lived in the forest before being caged and so
the forest was his world.
b. He is quiet and subdued now because he has been caged and is feeling hopeless and desolate.
c. As the tiger has nothing to do, he spends most of his time sleeping and snoring. He leads a
life without hope.
D. Answer in detail. (Think and answer)
A caged tiger lives in a world that is smaller than that of a free tiger. Do you agree? Substantiate your
answer with lines/ representations from the poem.
Ans: The poet starts by saying that the cage of the tiger is just twice its height, showing the
physical reduction in the size of the tiger’s world. In comparison with the vastness of the forest, the
cage is very small. Inside the cage, the tiger just paces, ‘Six paces left, six paces right’, whereas, in the
forest he once ‘flashed through open spaces’. The forest echoed with his roars, while in the cage he
is quiet. In the cage all he does is pace, stare, snore, sniff the air, slump and sigh, while in the forest
he would chase prey and enjoy his freedom. Through the bars of his cage he is able to see only a
glimpse of the sky, a puddle and some concrete space while the expanse of the forest cannot be
covered at a glance.
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