The Tiger Rising

“Here was somebody even stranger than he was. He was sure.”

Rob is an outsider at school in Lister: He is withdrawn and uncommunicative with the other kids at school, and he knows he is different. When Rob sees Sistine in her pink party dress, he recognizes that she will also be treated as an outsider.

“‘I’m from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,’ Sistine said, ‘home of the Liberty Bell, and I hate the South because the people in it are ignorant. And I’m not staying here in Lister. My father is coming to get me next week.’ She looked around the room defiantly.”

Sistine’s feisty and insulting introduction immediately alienates her from the other students. It reveals her simmering anger, her pain over the loss of her father, and her desire to be reunited with him.

“He was free.”

Rob knows his rash will not clear up, so he will not have to return to a school that he hates. He feels free from persecution. This quote also reveals Rob’s desire to avoid interacting with others.

“In his suitcase of not-thoughts, there were also not-wishes. He kept the lid closed on them too.”

Wishes are as dangerous as thoughts for Rob because he thinks if he keeps wishing, he may never stop. Wishing will not bring his mother back. He is afraid to wish for a friend.

“‘You got to let that sadness rise on up.’”

Willie May advises Rob to let his grief out. Her words have a poetic resonance to them and allude to the title of the novel: Rob’s grief is caged like the tiger is caged. When Rob frees the tiger and lets it rise out of its prison, Rob also frees his own emotions.

“‘I bet he ain’t got no certificate for sense though […]’”

Willie May doesn’t have a lot of respect for Mr. Phelmer’s educational credentials. Her own life experience and astute understanding of people give her a different kind of wisdom.

“‘You don’t know how to talk to people.’”

Sistine is right: Rob doesn’t know how to talk to people. He has been accustomed to keeping quiet about his feelings and doesn’t initially reciprocate with stories about his family or empathize when Sistine talks about her problems. Sistine shows that she prefers direct communication over secrets.

“‘It’s our tiger to save,’ Sistine said fiercely.”

Sistine reveals her beliefs about right and wrong. Because it is selfish and cruel to keep the tiger imprisoned, she believes they have the moral imperative to correct this wrong and free the tiger.

“He shook his head and scolded himself for opening his suitcase. Just thinking about things that were gone now seemed to make the darkness darker.”

This quote illustrates the novel’s motifs of light and darkness. Rob’s memories of his mother are aligned with brightness and light: The world was brighter when she was alive. In contrast, his present life is dull, gray, and dark.

“‘Caroline,’ Rob whispered into the darkness. ‘Caroline. Caroline. Caroline.’ The word was as sweet as forbidden candy on his tongue.”

Rob’s father has prohibited him from talking about Caroline. When Rob does allow himself to say her name, he finds the memory sweet instead of painful, showing that letting his emotions rise is a cathartic event.

“‘Who don’t know something in a cage?’”

Willie May suggests that there are other kinds of cages besides physical ones. People can be emotionally caged by things that happen to them.

“‘That’s the way real men do business. In tigers.’”

Beauchamp boasts to Rob that he is a “real man,” but he lacks an understanding of true manhood—like that demonstrated by Rob’s father. Beauchamp’s “manly” actions are superficial and juvenile.

“‘You an angry liar, then.’”

This quote illustrates Willie May’s bluntly honest manner of speaking and her ability to read Sistine’s character. Sistine respects Willie May’s analysis, and they become friends.

“Her words sounded the way all those things made him feel, as if the world, the real world, had been punched through, so that he could see something wonderful and dazzling on the other side of it.”

Rob appreciates Sistine’s love of beauty and the sense of wonder she feels when she talks about the Sistine Chapel and Rob’s carvings, and recites poetry, because he shares the same feelings. Their shared appreciation of the ability of art to transcend the mundane is one reason their friendship thrives.

“‘Ain’t no reason to doubt the fierceness of God when He make something like that,’ she said.”

In William Blake’s poem, “The Tyger,” the speaker concludes in frightened awe, “What immortal hand or eye, / Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?” (23-24). The speaker suggests that only God could create the tiger but questions why God would make such a fearsome animal. Willie May sees the tiger as an example of the power of God.

“‘Right ain’t got nothing to do with it,’ muttered Willie May. ‘Sometimes right don’t count.’”

While Sistine argues that it isn’t right to let the tiger stay caged, Willie May offers a more jaded and realistic view of life. She has learned that justice doesn’t always prevail, and that sometimes one’s actions are constricted by other considerations.

“And when he thought about the two things together, the tiger and his sadness, the truth circled over and above him and then came and landed lightly on his shoulder. He knew what he had to do.”

Here, Rob at last recognizes that freeing the tiger, letting it rise, will also allow Rob to free his own anger and grief.

“‘Well, that’s pretty,’ said Beauchamp. ‘That’s the kind of name worth running down the road after.’”

Beauchamp reveals his own shallowness when he appreciates the name “Sissy.” Sistine does not like “Sissy,” a diminutive, or pet name. Sistine is proud of her full name and its classical origin. She rightfully assumes Beauchamp would like “Sissy” better because calling her “little thing” reveals his superficial approach toward women. Like the tiger, they are pretty objects to acquire.

“He must, he realized, know somewhere, deep inside him, more things than he had ever dreamed of.”

As Rob’s emotional suitcase opens and releases more memories and feelings, he understands more about himself and can empathize and understand more about others. He knows Sistine’s father is not returning and that Beauchamp is a coward.

“And Rob saw that hitting wasn’t going to be enough. So he did something he thought he would never do. He opened his suitcase. And the words sprang out of it, coiled and explosive.”

Words are more powerful than blows as Rob finally releases all his pent-up anger and grief on his father. Rob’s words help his father acknowledge his own emotions.

“He cried from somewhere deep inside of himself, from the place where his mother had been, the same place that the tiger had been and was gone from now.”

Rob used the tiger to fill the void in his heart left by his mother. He did not put the tiger in his imaginary suitcase but on top of it, a talisman to keep his other thoughts away. When Rob loses the tiger, it is a profound loss, but it gains him back his father and his ability to express himself.

“‘What I got to say is I ain’t had good experiences with animals in cages.’”

Both Cricket and the tiger, the two caged animals in the story, die, coloring Willie May’s feelings about keeping things caged. Willie May also reveals a similarity between herself and Sistine and Rob. As a child, Willie May hated seeing Cricket in a cage and gave him his freedom, leading to his death. Now, as much as she would like to have seen the tiger free and safe, adult Willie May knew it was not the right thing to do. Sistine and Rob believed as Willie May did as a child, without thought to long-term effects.

“And he marveled, too, at how different he felt inside, how much lighter, as if he had set something heavy down and walked away from it, without bothering to look back.”

When Rob sets aside the burden of suppressing his feelings, he feels free. He has truly “risen” out of his self-imposed cage. Now, his relationships with his father and Sistine can flourish.