"Tigress" by Ruth Pitter is a poem that describes about a female tiger's features and about her life as a hunter and a mother.
In the beginning of the poem, Ruth is trying to tell us that the tigress is a dangerous animal especially when she's hunting. In a way, as the tigress gets hungry, she can become angry, " raging- and that other animals should be keeping a good distance away from her, particularly when she's stalking at night, " nocturnal terror".
In the third, fourth and fifth line, it tells of her movement, the ways she walks and jumps, " the frightful leaper." and have strong muscles/great strength. Her features, "Red-fire coated, green-fire-eyed- tells us that she has green, angry eyes that probably usually flashes at you when looking at her eyes and a bright red coat. As a tiger, she of course got as every other tigers have, the fangs, the sharp claws, and great at leaping and could walk/pad silently. .
Ruth then uses metaphors and personification to explain or to illustrate his point that the tigress is the queen of the other animals and wouldn't forgive to those she killed, in order to live, ' Tyrant of all the tyrant devil of the slaughter ." The next line, " the she-demon- tells us that she's vicious and that being a hunter is in her blood and couldn't help it that eating meat becomes her dinner.
Later, in the last stanza, the tigress becomes from a fierce hunter to a gentle, caring mother. Details: As she fell in love with a male tiger, she made love to him that made herself pregnant and had her "young", the cubs, in the wild, "wilderness". Now that she's a mother, she knows what loves feels like, she cares for her cubs as, "delicately as a doe.".
The poet, Ruth Pitter, probably wrote "Tigress" to try or prove to us that a tigress could have two different feeling, being vicious and the other one is turning to caring or gentle.
.
