The Child by Tiger

Thomas Wolfe “The Child by Tiger”

QUESTIONS

1. Discuss the setting of the story assuming for the purpose that the action takes place roughly twenty-five years before the first publication in 1937, as suggested by the first sentence). How important are time and place to the events and attitudes of various characters? How much do we learn about the town and its people? On what implicit premise are the black-white relationships in this town based? How does the use of offensive language contribute to your understanding of the characters?

2. The story begins and ends with stanzas from William Blake’s poem, “The Tiger.” How does this poem relate to the theme of the story? If you are not familiar with it, look it up and read the whole poem. How is it related to the passage in the Bible to which Dick’s Bible was left open (paragraphs 118-21)?

3. What feelings and motivations motivate the whites in tracking Dick down? What meaning has Dick’s final gesture of removing his shoes and awaiting the posse (paragraph 102)? How does this action contrast with the way his body is treated by the whites?

4. The narrator tells this story twenty-five years after its events took place. What importance does this removal in time have for the meaning of the story? Should we identify the author with the attitudes of the narrator as a boy? As a man?