Tyger Tyger, Burning Bright - The Transcendentalist
The tiger
He destroyed his cage
Yes
YES
The tiger is out
—by Nael, age 6
The child in all of us never got rid of the disappointment of how crude our material existence is. What do you mean I don’t live forever, I can’t fly, I can’t make myself invisible, I’m not strong enough to pick up a mountain? Only an adult is dumb enough to rationalize the sadness of all these things we can’t do.
The parent may pat the lovely head of their progeny and remind them that we live longer, have airplanes, camo technology is getting pretty good, and can make ourselves stronger…but who cares about indirect magic?
Those things are boring! If Superman can do it, why can’t I? Is there any wonder why little boys love dinosaurs, pirates, cowboys, and superheroes? Those things are much cooler than crusty old folk who sit at home and watch the news and talk about family members that nobody really likes.
Where is the sense of adventure? Where is the freedom? Who doesn’t want to be Blackbeard? Who doesn’t want to be a T-Rex? Theirs is a life that sets the rules. The biggest thing that roams the jungle or swims the sea follows their own urges. Does a great white have a bedtime? Is a tiger not allowed to snack on the leg of a water buffalo when the mood hits?
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
in the forrests of the night
what immortal hand or eye
could frame thy fearful symmetry.
—William Blake, The Tyger
Borges’s mother use to lose her mind over her tiger-crazed son. The future writer of labyrinthian short stories would cry until his mother loaded him into the car and drove him to the zoo. He would be absorbed by the tigers, staring at them for hours. Mother and son would scream at each other when it was time to leave but Borges wouldn’t budge even though the sun was going down.
His mother would threaten him with every curse, but it wasn’t until she said the magical enchantment that would make Borges do anything. “Borges, we leave right now or I hide your books.”
Like William Blake, I cannot help but wonder how the God who made the innocent lamb could make the tyger.
What the hammer? What the chain,
in what furnance was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp,
Dare it’s deadly terrors clasp?
—William Blake, The Tyger
There is a majestic beauty in this pinnacle of feline-killing power. Yet we only see it in captivity. It is Shere Khan who is only deadly to humans because his lameness affords no other prey. You cannot be a terror if your power does not come from absolute power! This is nothing but masking vulnerability.
We like the six-year, long-to-see the tiger who destroys his own cage. For we long to see our own cages destroyed. Otherwise, we will become like a cat of another family, Rainer Maria Rilke’s panther.
His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that he cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.
—Rainer Maria Rilke, The Panther
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