question_answer 6)

Why do you think Aunt Jennifer created animals that are so different from her own character? What might the poet be suggesting’ through this difference?    

Answer:

Aunt Jennifer creates an alternative world of freedom, one which she could not inhabit other than imaginatively or aesthetically. The desolating effects of patriarchy are assumed and exposed, in three quatrains. She is totally victimized by the absent Uncle, represented only by his wedding band, the symbol here of the oppression by custom and law.   The poet recreates fear- in the first stanza, implied slavery in the second, ordeals in the third stanza.   The poet presents an ironic image of a contrast between the common perception of animals as being brutal and of men being humane. Here the 'brutal' tiger represents freedom while the 'civilized' man the oppressor.