This essay provides a reader-response-based analysis of “The Tyger” by William Blake. After a brief overview of reader-response theory, where reader subjects serve to make sense of the text, the essay begins by focusing on the contradiction and division that lives within the tiger himself. Blake's "Tyger" is both a beautiful and fierce creature. From here, the essay moves forward by examining the multiple references to symmetry made by Blake in "The Tyger" and proposes that this is an overarching whole containing many of the tiger's contradictions. To take this further, the essay proposes, in the context of a secondary literature that debates the realism of Blake's depiction of the tiger, that although Blake does not depict a specific tiger in his poem, this is largely beyond relevant because the work is not focused on the tiger. tiger as a real animal, but rather about the tiger as a myth of nature. With all of the above in mind, the essay concludes by noting that "The Tyger" is particularly open to reader response analyzes because of its open depiction of the tiger as well as its openness to divergent interpretations. Reader response theories propose that literary works exist in a mutual relationship between reader and author. The meaning that a reader extracts from a text is the simultaneous result of the author's intention and the reader's interpretation of it (Roberts, 149). With this theory, there is an inherent subjectivity associated with the analysis of any literary work. An author can give a specific meaning to the story, but another person can read the story and create their own interpretation that is just as meaningful as the author's original ideas. In other words, i.e. middle of paper ... a simple and straightforward interpretation of the poem makes it a responsive target for critical thinking, repeated interpretation and rereading. “The Tyger” is an accessible but elusive work of art. Works Cited Baine, Mary R. and Rodney M. Baine. "Blake's Other Tigers and 'The Tyger'." Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 15.4 (1975): 563-78.Bloom, Harold. "Critical Analysis of the Principal Poets of "The Tyger" Bloom: William Blake. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York, NY: Chelsea House, 2003. 17-19. Nurmi, Martin K. "Blake's Revisions of the Tiger." Publication of Modern Language Association 71.4 (1956): 669-85. Price, Martin "Martin Price on Terror and Symmetry in 'The Tyger'" William Blake (Bloom's Major Poets Ed. 2003. 38-40. Roberts, Edgar V. Writing about literature Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. 2011.