The speaker of “The Tyger” offers no concrete information about his or her age, class, gender, or race. Rather than reflecting on personal thoughts or experiences, the speaker focuses his or her attention on the world. The mysterious nature of this world spurs that line of thinking. Specifically, it is the awful fearsomeness of the tiger that has captured the speaker’s imagination. Demonstrating a restless capacity for questioning, the speaker pursues a line of inquiry that asks what type of being could have made such a creature. Implicit here is the speaker’s belief in some metaphysical, powerful creator. The speaker doesn’t specifically refer to this creator as “God,” so it isn’t clear whether the creator being asked about is the God who Christians worship. Even so, judging by the tiger’s fearsome nature, the speaker assumes that the tiger’s creator must be similarly awe-inspiring. The speaker’s belief in a creator is therefore inseparable from his or her fear of such a powerful being. Arguably, it is this fear that motivates the speaker most deeply, leading to the question of how the same creator who made the gentle lamb could make a creature as fearsome as the tiger.

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