William Blake's entire poem is filled with rhetorical questions that show awe toward the creative force behind the powerful and dangerous tiger. The first question asks "what immortal hand or eye could frame" such an impressive beast. In the second stanza the speaker asks what hand could "dare seize the fire." This suggests that the maker of the tiger had to be more bold and daring than the beast itself—he had to be able to...
William Blake's entire poem is filled with rhetorical questions that show awe toward the creative force behind the powerful and dangerous tiger. The first question asks "what immortal hand or eye could frame" such an impressive beast. In the second stanza the speaker asks what hand could "dare seize the fire." This suggests that the maker of the tiger had to be more bold and daring than the beast itself—he had to be able to grasp the beast without being harmed himself.
The questions that arise after the "heart began to beat" are somewhat ambiguous. They are "What dread hand? & what dread feet?" The point of these questions seems to be: "What dreadful hands and feet could handle the beating of such a powerful heart?" By asking such a rhetorical question, the poet acknowledges that the hands and feet of the Creator are, indeed, capable of controlling the thing he has made.
The lines that indicate the Creator can handle his creation are the lines that say he can "seize the fire" and that he himself has "dread hands" and "dread feet." Although the poem presents these qualities of the Creator in question form, the answers to the questions are self-evident. The poem acknowledges the superiority of the Creator over the creation even as it seems to question the wisdom of creating a beast as dreadful as the tiger.
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