"The lamb is made by Christ and is an obvious symbol of the mild and gentle aspects of Creation, which are easy to associate with a God of love "(Edwards). When you read the word "lamb," always first think: symbol of Jesus Christ ("the Lamb of God"). As the tradition holds, animals such as lambs were sacrificed to God or gods in general until God offered his Son, Jesus Christ – his lamb – as the final sacrifice for the sins of mankind. The lamb is also a symbol of life. It provides humans with food, clothing, and other things humans need to survive.
In "The Lamb," the character in this poem is a child who wants to know if God is like a lamb when he says, "He is meek, and he is mild/ He became a little child.I a child, and thou a lamb"(17). When you think of a child, you see someone who is meek, pure, and innocent. So a child is like a lamb, someone who stands for purity. In this poem the young boy is explaining that God considers himself to be like a lamb, innocent and meek when he says, "He is called by thy name, for he calls himself a Lamb" (13-14).The fact that the character questions who makes the lamb validates the being of a single, powerful, inspiring creator, one who dares to create both the tiger and the lamb. William Blake's "The Lamb" is an attempt to bring up life's ultimate questions through the voice of child. He's questioning the lamb and his origin, the world, and the creator himself. The poem is structured as the first stanza with the question and the second stanza with the answer. Throughout the poem the child keeps arguing with the lamb about its nature, as if to repress the lamb's self-worth. When the child receives no answer, he decides that he will tell the lamb where he came from. He says, "Little Lamb, I'll tell thee!"(12) Jesus was once a child and the speaker relates with, "I a child & thou a lamb/ we are called by his name.
