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The overall tone of “The Tyger” is inquisitive and awestruck. It’s quite easy to detect the inquisitive tone. After all, the poem consists entirely of questions. But this is just the superficial aspect of the poem’s querying quality. More important to recognize is how the speaker’s questions develop. The questions start on a very general level, asking what type of being could be capable of fashioning a creature like the tiger. As they continue, however, the speaker asks questions that probe deeper into the mystery of the tiger’s creation. The speaker doesn’t simply want to know who made the tiger. He or she also wants to know what materials the tiger is made from and what kind of context the tiger was made in. Most importantly, the speaker wants to know how the creator must have felt about his creation, and how the tiger might relate to other creatures he’s created. This line of questioning about the tiger and its creator reveals an implicit sense of awe, where awe refers both to reverence and fear. The tiger is at once marvelous and fearsome, so its creator must be similarly awe-inspiring. Who else but such an impressive creator would “dare frame [such] fearful symmetry” (line 24)?

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