Literary essay “Here There Be Tygers”
”The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn”
– Marcus Tullius Cicero

The school is supposed to be a place where children can let their imagination flow. But in the school of the 1960´s, rules, authorities, discipline and the promise of physical punishment to those who did not obey, subjugated children’s imagination.
Stephen King’s short story from 1968 “Here There Be Tygers” is about a strict teacher and a young boy whose imagination comes to live in the shape of a fearsome tiger, and challenges the order and the strict discipline of a US primary school.

The story is narrated from the main character Charles´ perspective. The narrator is a third person, non-omniscient narrator, which means that we see the world trough Charles´ eyes, from a child’s perspective. This signifies that we see things that happen, the way he experiences it. To Charles, the tiger, which he encounters in the men’s bathroom, is as real as Miss Bird.
Charles feels that his teacher, Miss Bird, is hostile towards him, the narrator says: ”She meant to pounce. Charles thought that miss bird was about to find out what pouncing was really about”(p.159, l.23-25). This displays Charles´ apprehension towards miss Bird because, from his perspective, it feels like his teacher really is attacking him. From a grown ups perspective, miss Birds behaviour would not seem as aggressive as it does to Charles.
Charles has a very strained relationship with Miss Bird. He is very sure about miss Bird wanting to ruin his life by humiliating him in front of the class. This is to be seen in the text when the narrator says: ”Charles had known he would end up with Miss Bird. He had known that. It had been inevitable. Because Miss Bird obviously wanted to destroy him”(p.155, l.11-13) Charles feels that Miss Birds way of talking to him is her way of destroying him because he finds it rather embarrassing when she is talking down to him and also using the word “urinate” when he needs to go to the toilet. It actually seems like Miss Bird enjoys embarrassing Charles, because she smiles at him when embarrassing him, clear for everyone to see.
The story takes place in a school, where a child spends a vast amount of its time. The school is where children mature, where they learn certain values and it is furthermore a place where they discover the difference between being a boy and a girl. Charles has reached an age where he can tell the difference between an attractive woman and a less attractive one: “Miss Kinney was young and blond and bouncy (…) Mrs. Task was shaped like a Moorish pillow and did her hair in braids and laughed boomingly”(p.155, l.6-10. It is a process that everyone goes through at some point in their lives, and as readers, we are able to relate to Charles and his rather juvenile thoughts on his teachers.
The title of the story refers to the cartographic notation for uncharted territory, "Here be dragons", which means dangerous or unexplored territories, in imitation of the medieval practice of putting dragons, sea serpents and other mythological creatures in uncharted areas of maps. And that is exactly what the basement is to Charles, because even thought basement and bathroom refers to the same place, the word basement represents a place where everything does not have to be as disciplined and polished up as the rest of the school.
Another aspect that makes the setting of the story significant is the fact that the school stands as a symbol of authority, and it is where children learn to follow the rules of society. It is seen when Miss Bird forbids the word basement as a reference to bathroom: “Young ladies and gentlemen do not go to the basement (…) they go to the bathroom”(p.155, l.17-18), and it is also illustrated on the posters hanging on the bulletin board: “Woodsy owl said give a hoot, don’t pollute. Officer friendly said never ride with strangers”(p.159, l.28-30). The tiger, which Charles encounters in the bathroom, is Charles´ way of rebelling against the oppressing rules of society, and disposing those who upholds them.

The tiger, as an extension of Charles´ imagination, and Miss Bird is respectively the antagonist and the protagonist of the story, meaning that they are two opposite forces struggling against each other. What Stephen King wants to show us in this rather bizarre short story, is that rules and authorities will always fall short against the imagination of a child.
Karakter: 10 (pil op. Flot besvarelse, Emil, virkelig godt arbejde! Men vær lidt mere konkret i dine fortolkende kommentarer til citaterne og prøv at være meget mere konkret i din afsluttende konklusion/fortolkning: hvilke elementer er til stede, der får dig til at konkludere ’imagination’, hvilket er lidt for upræcist, for handler det blot om hans kreativitet og glæde, der holdes nede af skolen/læreren? Hans ”umodne” (dine ord) tanker, hvordan passer de ind under samme overskrift (nu drejer jeg lidt på ordet for dig: fantasier)?)