Compare And Contrast The Lamb And The Tyger

941 Words2 Pages

The Lamb, The Tyger, And The Child by Tiger
For as long as there has been life, there has been a constant war of good and evil. The poems The Lamb and The Tyger by William Blake suggest that these two powers, good and evil, exist, but in separate bodies. Thomas Wolfe, the author of The Child by Tiger, on the other hand, suggests that good and evil coexist in humans. Wolfe shows in his story that everybody has their breaking point where the good will be taken over by the evil, and chaos will ensue. These pieces of literature all deal with the thematic issues of good, bad, right and wrong, but the connections essentially stop there.
The Tyger and The Lamb both use lots of imagery to illustrate their points about life. On one hand, The Lamb …show more content…

Upon hearing of Dick’s massacre, they become overcome with rage and the community descends into violent chaos. A small riot ensues, with people completely ignoring or forgetting their sense of right and wrong, and the citizens raid the hardware store of the town as they “helped themselves to every rifle they could find”. This mob’s sole purpose is to track down and kill Dick Prosser, no matter what laws they break or what it takes, and they shout obscenities as they go on their way. These citizens, who would seem completely normal on any other day, snap at the news of Dick Prosser’s rampage. They then revert to a sort of primal state in which their only priority is to eliminate this man as brutally as possible. This normally unusual and totally unacceptable behaviour is accepted, and the townspeople eventually succeed in murdering, mutilating, and proudly displaying their handiwork in a public place. Wolfe is suggesting that, in the right circumstances, even the strangest, most barbaric actions can become accepted by the mind and seem normal to the person or people carrying these actions out. While Blake’s poems argue that either good or evil can exist in one being, not both, this is not the case shown by the irrational actions of Wolfe’s …show more content…

On one hand, the idea that either solely good or solely evil can exist within one being is presented by the poems. The two forces are separate and cannot be mixed. On the other hand, the short story suggests that not only do these things exist in everything and everyone, but that everyone has a point at which the good will be consumed by the evil. At this time, chaos and disorder are sure to follow. It is not discussed where exactly that point may be, but it could potentially happen to anyone. Though all of these works consider the existence of good and evil within humanity, this is essentially where the thematic similarities end. All three pieces of literature agree on the reality of these forces, but a consensus about their powers over each living individual cannot be reached between

Open Document