Aunt Jennifer's Tigers
Symbols, colours and sounds
Interpret the symbols and the double meaning of 'ringed'.
The poem's words and symbols are carefully chosen.
- 'Denizens' (inhabitants) of a world of green: the tigers are at home in their world, as she is not in hers.
- 'Chivalric': the tigers are brave and noble, like knights.
- The wedding band is a symbol of marriage, and of a husband's control and dominance.
- The tigers stand for freedom, pride and fearlessness: everything Aunt Jennifer lacks.
The word 'ringed' has two meanings: she wears a ring on her finger, and she is surrounded on all sides, trapped, by her ordeals.
Colours paint the contrast: the tigers' world is bright topaz and green, full of life, while her needle is a pale ivory.
The poem is written in rhyming couplets (three stanzas of four lines, rhyming in pairs). The sounds help too: repeated 'p' sounds (prance, proud) for the proud tigers, and 'f' sounds (fingers fluttering) for her nervous hands.
Practise this lesson
Questions that get harder as you improve, a Tutor that helps without giving the answer away, and progress you can see. Free for every learner.
No account, no email address. Opens the real product.