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Leslie Norris was a prize-winning Welsh poet and short story writer. Today he is considered one of the most important Welsh writers of the post-war period. His collections of stories, including Collected Stories, and poems, including Collected Poems, have won many prizes, among them the Cholmondeley Poetry Prize, the David Higham Memorial Prize, the Katherine Mansfield Memorial Award, the AML Award, the AML Award for poetry, and the Welsh Arts Council Senior Fiction Award.

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This poem contrasts a tiger in the zoo with the tiger in its natural habitat. The tiger in the zoo walks in the limited space provided to it in the cage. There are stripes on its body that are quite prominent. Its paws are soft like velvet. No noise is produced when it walks on its ‘pads of velvet’. The tiger is silent but in anger. The cage is not the proper place for the tiger. It is not its natural habitat. Usually, tigers are found sitting under long grass near a stream. As soon as they see their prey like deer coming, they slide silently through the grass and kill them. Here, he is imprisoned in a cell made of concrete. He cannot come out of the cell because strong bars are fixed. The tiger’s strength is locked behind the bars. He shows no interest in looking at the visitors. Rather he keeps on stalking in the limited space of the cage. The tiger should be sitting at the jungle’s edge in close vicinity of a village. He should be terrorizing the people passing that way by its sharp teeth, baring its claws and producing low sound of anger. He hears the sound of the patrolling cars of the zoo authorities. He shows no interest in them. He stares at the shining stars with his brilliant eyes. Which makes him think about his present captive state.

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The most important theme of the poem is freedom vs captivity. In this poem, the poet describes how the tiger longs for its freedom. It somehow wants to break its imposed captivity to become the same wild spirit again. Thereafter, the poet talks about how men try to tame the wild. It not only destroys the beauty of the wild but it also tries to kill one’s basic instincts. Moreover, the description of the tiger and its movement in the forest depict the nature of wilderness.

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Personification: The tiger is personified because the poet
refers to him as ‘he’.

Metaphor: Tiger’s paws are compared with velvet (pads of
velvet)

Enjambment: Sentence is continuing to the next line without any punctuation mark.

Imagery: poet tries to create an image about the tiger (He
stalks in his vivid stripes The few steps of his cage)

Consonance: use of ‘s’ sound (stalks, his, stripes)

Assonance: use of vowel sound ‘I’ (in his vivid stripes)

Oxymoron: use of adjectives opposite in meaning (quiet rage)

Enjambment: Line continues to next line without punctuation marks. (Sliding through….deer pass)

Alliteration: use of sound ‘p’ at the start of two words (plump pass)

Imagery: The poet has tried to create an image of tiger’s activities (lurking in shadow).

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Stalks: follows

Vivid: bright colored

Pads: paws of a tiger

Rage: anger

Lurking: To be hidden as to wait for your prey

Snarling: warning sounds made by animals

Baring: uncovered

Fangs: Sharp teeth of animals

Concrete: a building made of bricks, cement, sand, and water

Patrolling: to guard, to vigil