Explanation of Adaptation

The Tiger by William Blake is a poem that explores the nature of good, evil, human nature and the divine. The word 'symmetry' ultimately implies a kind of perfection, something so far removed from "humanity" that it must be divine - the work of God(s). When Blake implores "Did He who made the lamb make thee?", it is a juxtaposition of the innocence of the lamb and the deadly nature of the Tiger.

We are faced with a query of God - but more importantly, human nature. It is in the realisation that both the lamb and the Tiger are made by the same thing - whether God or simply the labeling, naming nature of humanity - that spells the end of innocence.

Did we, as humans, make lamb innocent? Or did God? Did we, as humans, make the Tiger ferocious? Or did God? What the lamb and Tiger have come to symbolize could be a direct consequence of either "possibility" - but it is the understanding that hand in hand with innocence comes its breaking is what I feel is important.

Perhaps, most importantly, is that the Tiger does not just symbolize the opposite of innocence - it symbollizes human nature and the breaking of innocence that must happen to every child. Presumably, Blake does not believe in the concept of Original Sin.

Of Tigers and Lambs

Simon, sweat-drenched and all of five feet high, was perched high on the bough of a tree and gripping onto its green parasite, those hanging, creeping tentacles - a decade long death. He peered into the gloomy, moonlit night and jewels of light were winking at him; dew droplets scattered on the jungle canopy. Simon wondered at their beauty, that a million gems could form in this harsh, unforgiving place.

He looked down, seeking the base of the trunk that promised him safety, wondering if he would see those flashing eyes again. Oh, those eyes! They tormented him so, hunted him in mind and body, mocked him from afar in some deep recess of imagination before springing, leaping, pouncing to grip his heart with all the ferocious terror of that whiskered beast, that orange beast.

He groaned and clutched at his head and felt the warm, sticky breath against his cheek. His head snapped right, then left. Nothing. She could not catch him up here. No... a Tiger cannot climb this high.

A few Haikus

Beating, hitting heat
Summer noon with sun perched high
Fades to cool breeze blue

--

The red breasted King
Without but a splash
A fish in his beak

--

Jellyfish stretched long
With tentacles all trailing
Traps its prey in shock

--

Howling and windswept
The trees sway violently
A wrathful typhoon

Adaptation

Poem --> Story

Original:

William Blake. 1757–1827

489. The Tiger

TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies	5
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?	10
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp	15
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?	20
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?