This document provides analysis of Emma Jones' poem "Tiger in the Menagerie". It describes how the poem depicts a tiger held captive in a menagerie that comes to blur the lines between itself and its cage. Through dreamlike imagery and paradoxical syntax, the poem explores themes of human control over wild creatures and hidden capabilities. It leaves the reader with thought-provoking questions about restraint and the relationship between captors and captive.

1. Tiger in the
MenagerieEmma Jones

2. William
Blake’s
famous
poem…

3. Menagerie
• a collection of wild animals kept in captivity
for exhibition.

4. Animal artists at the Jardin des Plantes, Paris. From the magazine "L'Illustration", 7 August 1902.

5. Emma Jones
• Born in Sydney
• Studied at University of Sydney & University of
Cambridge, where she obtained her Ph.D
• Published her first book, The Striped World, in
2009
• One of Australia’s most exciting up-and-
coming poets

6. What’s the poem about?
• The theme of a striped world
• Human control and restraint of wild creatures
• Conflict & Violence
• Artificially-controlled aggression
• Hidden true capabilities
Diverse interpretations!

7. Tiger in the Menagerie
No one could say how the tiger got into the menagerie.
It was too flash, too blue,
too much like the painting of a tiger.

8. At night the bars of the cage and the stripes of the tiger
looked into each other so long
that when it was time for those eyes to rock shut
the bars were the lashes of the stripes
the stripes were the lashes of the bars

9. *a row of evenly spaced columns supporting a roof, an
entablature, or arches.
** ornamental design in wood, typically openwork, done with a
fretsaw
and they walked together in their dreams so long
through the long colonnade*
that shed its fretwork** to the Indian main
that when the sun rose they'd gone and the tiger was
one clear orange eye that walked into the menagerie.

10. No one could say how the tiger got out in the
menagerie.
It was too bright, too bare.
If the menagerie could, it would say 'tiger'.
If the aviary* could, it would lock its door.
Its heart began to beat in rows of rising birds
when the tiger came inside to wait.
* a large cage, building, or enclosure for keeping
birds in.

11. Vocabulary
colonnade fretwork

12. Vocabulary
Aviary

13. Form & Structure
• 19 lines
• No particular structure
• No rhyme scheme (style is extremely free)
• Uses repetition of “too” to make the descriptions seem
unrealistic, surreal
• Anaphora – the repetition of a word or phrase at the
beginning of successive clauses/lines, e.g. “No one
could say how the tiger got into the menagerie” and
“No one could say how the tiger got out in the
menagerie.”
• Alliteration, metaphor & personification
• Striking imagery conveyed through clear language.

14. Tone, Mood & Figurative Language
• Tone – awestruck
• Mood – dreamlike, curious, surreal
• Cryptic syntax* e.g. “the bars were the lashes of
the stripes, the stripes were the lashes of the
bars” – her use of unique syntax seems to make
the cage evert – leaving the tiger on the outside!
• Paradox - a seemingly absurd or contradictory
statement or proposition which when
investigated may prove to be well founded or
true.
*Syntax - the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a
language.

15. Think about it…
Are we like the tiger?
Are we like the menagerie?

16. Check out more resources here…
• https://prezi.com/fpsm7mppywbq/untitled-
prezi/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BZFFOZ
A0ws
• http://www.thedrunkenboat.com/EmmaJones
view.html
• http://www.hotsdots.com/poetry/2009/08/e
mma-jones-the-striped-world-london-faber-
2009-55pp/

17. Essay questions:
• How does Emma Jones make her poem ‘The
Tiger in the Menagerie’ powerfully moving
and fearful to the readers at the same time?
Or:
• How does Emma Jones skilfully contrast the
real nature of the tiger with its behaviour in
captivity?